


Give It Up

by Lliyk



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Anticipation, Begging, Comfort Sex, Dominance, Drama, Eventual Smut, F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Nesting, POV Katara (Avatar), Tattoos, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:28:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27015778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lliyk/pseuds/Lliyk
Summary: Katara’s world takes a sharp left. Zuko makes sure that she knows he’s there for her.In a flash the image in her mind shifts and changes. Saliva pools in from her bottom canines. An angry, aching pulse of need flushes through her core. A shiver works it’s way down her spine, and she thinks she might just vibrate right out of her rebelling skin.“Of course you want it my way.” Zuko is saying, eyes closed and taking deep breaths through the part of his reddened lips. His thumb graces the line of her neck. “Iknew...” He mutters, then, with topaz eyes locking with hers: “Do you trust me?”Her breathless answer is as automatic as the affront that pulls at her mouth. “I trust you.” She says. “Of course I trust you.”
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 131
Kudos: 371





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i know, i know. i _know_ i’m supposed to be finishing honorfall. just... don’t look at me, okay? okay.

* * *

“Break up with him.”

Katara’s eyes widen, her head snapping to the side as if struck. As if she hadn’t been hit already.

_“What?”_

She stares as the scowl on Zuko’s face only deepens. His tall form crowds the doorframe and his hands have curled into fists at his sides. There is the unmistakable vapor of heat he tended to let off when he was at his most angry, and the sage-smoke scent of it sits almost painfully in the back of her nose. Katara has been privy to his real anger only once before in their two years as co-workers—in their one year as _friends_ —but Zuko isn’t _just_ her friend anymore, hasn’t been all summer. Since the day they met for the first time in his shared house with her boyfriend she had felt them kindred spirits—and that’s exactly what she’d told him at the time. Her intuition had been solid, for once, and if anyone asked she’d claim him as pack without hesitation. Zuko hadn’t just become her friend, but her _best_ friend. 

She sluggishly concludes that the vapor rolling off of him is in fact not a figment of her muddled mind. 

Zuko is absolutely livid.

 _Break up with him._ They are the only words he’s said to her since waltzing into Jet’s room, where she lay dozing under the plush duvet waiting for said boyfriend to come home for their date tonight, and tossed his phone at her. The device had bounced and skipped across the mattress, only to land perfectly into her lap when she’d sat up in alarm at his abrupt entrance.

“What?” Katara repeats, softer, disbelieving, because Zuko has said nothing more, just continues to glare at her with honeyed eyes—another sure sign that turmoil lay underneath his surface, for they were usually the bright inhuman glow of gold. Katara looks away in the face of Zuko’s deafening silence and back to his phone, cradled carefully between her now shaking fingers. Shock is still curdled cold and heavy in the pit of her gut. A tear that she’s unaware of having shed lands on the surface of the mobile, unintentionally enlarging the picture that’s put the horrible, icy, sinking feeling into her body.

Jet, kissing another girl.

“How—” Frost covers the edge of the phone as a dizziness washes over her, and she finds that she is incapable of speaking in anything above a whisper. “Where did you get this?”

“Does it _matter?”_

_No_ , her mind supplies dully. _It doesn’t_. Her hand slaps itself over her mouth just as a sob wrenches out of her throat and tears blur her vision completely, blocking out the image marked with an hour old time-stamp. But it’s too late. The picture has seared itself into her memory and it’s _all_ she can see. 

Jet, kissing another girl.

Jet, _kissing_ another girl.

 _Jet_ , kissing _another girl._

And he’d told her he _loved_ her like always before getting out of bed today.

Another sob shakes her shoulders.

“Shit.” There’s an indescribable softening in Zuko’s tone as he calls to her. “You weren't supposed to _cry,_ Kat _—_ ”

Just as she blinks away some of the tears, as her fingers automatically twitch to reach for Zuko’s own beckoning hand in a search for comfort—because, _what?_ —the sound of the front door unlocking sounds out, loud and ominous down the hall. Her fingers freeze mid air and her eyes widen all over again, a swell of panic ballooning in her chest. In that very same second Zuko’s hand curls back into a fist, and before she knows it the doorframe is vacant of him, his half unbound hair whisking his peppery scent behind him, the only sign that he had been there at all.

That, and his phone, still clutched in her other hand with a freezing death grip. Her body feels stuck on a loop between her brain’s rejection of the very space she occupies; the fact that barely a moment ago she was _comfortable_ in it and now she wants nothing more than to leave her own skin. 

The fact that a _moment_ ago Jet was her boyfriend.

And _now_ he’s—

A hard _crack_ resounds throughout the house, followed immediately by a surprised yelp of pain.

 _“What_ the _fuck,_ Zuko?!”

_Oh, no._

Her heart wrenches, accompanied by a sharp gasp that only rips at the gaping void starting to take up residency in her chest. In a flash she tosses the duvet away and springs out of the bed, forgetting that she’s in a stolen oversized t-shirt and practically nothing else, her socked feet sliding on the wooden floors as she grasps for the doorframe. She swings into the hallway just in time to see Zuko haul Jet up by the lapels of his leather jacket and slam him into the front door with enough force to rattle the frames on the walls. There’s a thick stream of blood dribbling down Jet’s nose and over his top lip, and the barest hints of smoke rise from where Zuko’s got his hands fisted in Jet’s coat.

“ _Zuko_ ,” Katara croaks, fear slithering in with the panic as she catches the copper tang on the air. She hastily wipes her face, cursing her dampeners for starting to wear off _now_ , and strides down the hall. She knows first hand how violent he can really be. How ugly this can get. “stop, Zuko! Don’t—!”

“Yeah, _Zuko_.” Jet glares. “What’s your fucking problem all of a sudden? Let me _go_.”

“Say the words.” Zuko doesn’t budge, his eyes locked onto Jet’s as if looks alone can kill. He growls, steam pouring from his nostrils. “I’ll end him _right now_.”

“Is this about me making us skip breakfast this morning?” Jet rolls his eyes, agitated. “Dude I _told_ you it was a last minute gig—”

 _“Liar.”_ Katara winces at the word, sliding backwards as if Zuko was jerking at her collar instead of Jet’s. The vapor around his form sways dangerously. “He _reeks_ , Katara.”

“Put him down.” She interjects sternly. “ _Please_ , Zu.”

With a snarl Zuko shoves Jet into the door a last time and promptly backs off to her side, leaving Jet to barely catch himself when his boots hit the ground. Jet wipes his nose and then stares at the blood smearing the whole of his palm when he pulls it away. Katara watches as a dark shadow crosses Jet’s brown eyes and curses to herself as he straightens, makes a sound of warning. She knows just how violent _he_ can be too, how fights between him and Zuko _always_ end with broken bones.

“Jet—” 

“Make it _good_ , Zuko.” Jet demands lowly. The tone sends familiar shivers down her spine but it’s the glint of the knife that he’s already edged out of the sheath at his belt that makes her fingers curl. “Explain now or we take it outside. The choice is yours.”

“Open the fucking door then, Jet.” Zuko dares. He’s pacing now, toying with sparks between his fingers. “It’s not _me_ you’ll need to be worried about.”

“You’re not making _sense_.” A look of angry confusion filters over Jet’s face. “Kat?” he implores quietly, though the edge of danger has not left his tone. He looks to her with such gentle eyes that Katara can feel another piece of herself shatter in the depths of the gap in her ribs. “I cant talk to him like this, you know that. Why’s this _fucker_ gone all guard dog again?”

“I don’t know.” Her voice cuts into Zuko’s growl and it sounds as hollow as she feels. Every bone in her body that screams for her to dip her fingers in water and heal the already purpling splotch that is now Jet’s nose quiets, and the weight of Zuko’s phone in her hand is suddenly far too heavy. She slowly holds it out for Jet to take. “ _You’re_ the one who asked him to “ _protect me”_ when you’re not around, Jet.” Saying his name feels like salt water sitting on the back of her tongue. “So maybe that’s something you can answer for yourself.”

Zuko stops his pace as Jet takes the phone, and the angry confusion on Jet’s face melts briefly into a carefully blank mask the second he sees the enlarged picture. His mouth pulls thin as his fingers tighten briefly around the still-frosted edges of the device and he looks up, to Zuko with something akin to true rage starting to shine in his dark stare, and then to Katara.

“Kat I was just—”

“ _Cheating_ on me?” Katara stops him before he can start—before he can lie to _her_ , because she senses it in the way his lip is set, the dip in his brow, the _scent_ —easing away until she can feel the solid, comforting heat of Zuko’s presence at her back. Her eyes threaten to brim again, because saying the words out loud somehow makes it more real than the immediate guilt that flashes across Jet’s features. “ _How could you?”_

Jet stares at the picture. “Where did you get this?”

Struck again. Katara almost laughs, anger sliding down the back of her throat in swift, sudden waves in the face of her own words. She finds Zuko’s, as deafeningly silent as he is now, echoing around her mind.

 _Break up with him_.

Katara nods to herself, blinks away the sting of wet in her eyes, and turns down the hall.

Jet calls for her to wait but she doesn’t, uncaring if he follows—which he does—but she doesn’t need to look over her shoulder to know that he does not make it within reach. In his room she slips into the lacy underwear that he’d peeled her out of only hours ago, packs the rest of her things with shaky hands and hasty steps. The house is silent as she walks through, purposely unseeing because maybe if she won’t look then she won’t miss it. The wrenching in her heart returns in full as she shoves her feet into her boots.

She realizes then that she’ll never come back. Can’t. 

Katara doesn’t bat an eyelash when she walks through the front door and is greeted with the scent and sight of Zuko pulling rank, hears the sound of agitated snarls from the edge of the yard— _move, Zuko_ and _let me see her._ She tugs at the fitted cotton fabric of his long-sleeve shirt to gently snag his attention, lest he turn his posture of dominance towards her in the midst of the moment.

“Zuko,” She hates that her voice is down to a whisper again. She swallows the hardening lump in her throat when he turns his back fully to Jet in order to face her—it would be too bold to assume that the action means what she knows it to. “can you take me somewhere?” She clutches the hem of her stolen shirt and the strap of her backpack, not daring to ask elsewise. “Anywhere. Anywhere but here.”

Zuko looks her over with a gaze still made of honey instead of gold and gives her a curt nod. 

“Don’t move,” he says, and a high whine meets her ears the moment he slips by and into the house. Katara glues her eyes to the graying sky. _Fitting_ , she thinks as she does her best to ignore the litany of upset growling sounds. From the corner of her sight she can see Jet pacing the length of the lawn. “Kat,” he calls, and her gut twists at the hint of huskiness, to which she grits her teeth. It takes all of her willpower not to react to him in light of her medication simmering out of her system. “Katara.” Jet pleads. _“Look at me.”_

Katara considers the thickening of the clouds. Where is Zuko?

“You’re not even going to say _goodbye_?” Jet snaps. 

The high grate of an engine rumbling to life in the near distance is a soothing balm to Katara’s anxiety, but not even the vision of Zuko swinging Cherry around the curve of the block in all her glistening, dragon-scale glory can drown out the sound of Jet’s begging for her attention. There is the barest hint of desperation starting to creep into his voice; had he been anyone else from her romantic past a lick of satisfaction would have worked its way through her, but she _knew_ Jet’s history, confessed to her in warning by Zuko in the early days of their relationship. She’d told him to fuck off about it, then. She’d _trusted_ Jet, with _so much_ of herself. _Believed_ him. Hoped.

And now she only has the sickening feeling of betrayal sitting in her chest to show for it.

“You’re not even _listening_ , for fucks sake—you can’t leave like this, Kat!” Jet shouts as she watches Zuko knock down the kickstand of his motorcycle. “You can’t leave with _him!”_

Yet Katara does just that. She focuses on the steady purr of Cherry and the rising winds following in Jet’s blessed silence when Zuko barks the command at him. She hoists her backpack over her shoulders and strides a wide arc across the lawn to where Zuko has stepped onto the sidewalk to meet her. There’s a hoodie in his hand, and a single flourish he steps into her space and ties the arms of it around her waist, ushers her towards his bike.

“Don’t be here when I get back.” Zuko snaps over his shoulder. It’s not a command but the implication is all the same. Katara tries not to think about how that means he won’t be staying wherever they’re going, just takes the spare helmet Zuko hands her under her arm and fits her legs to the shape of his over the seat.

Jet’s muted shout is the last she hears of him.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

She’s grateful Zuko understands that _anywhere but here_ does not mean the front door of her own apartment.

The cloying scent of his favored bamboo shampoo wafts out to her from the unbound locks trailing from under his scarlet helm, undercut with the smell of cinder-smoke that is purely him, and for their brief ride through the street Katara lets herself fall into it—the heady, body warming scent of _alpha_ , usually kept blocked to her senses. It eases the discomfort that’s settled into her bones, and she rests her head in the center of Zuko’s back, closing her eyes against the passing scenery and tracking every shift of muscle as he navigates.

Zuko revs Cherry’s engine purposefully when they stop, a silent warning for her to hang on as they peel past the light and onto the highway. Katara tosses her hair back and fastens on her borrowed helmet with deft fingers. The wind nips harshly at her bare legs, rendering them into a pleasant numb feeling that she welcomes alongside the loud silence that the helmet affords her. It isn’t until Zuko brings them back down to the streets and stops at a pair of enormous iron gates that she resurfaces from the recess of her mind.

Katara raises her brows as she takes in the distinct luxury of the area they’re in. Zuko steadies the bike with a single booted foot to the ground and lifts his helmet with a short wave. Almost instantly the gates slide open, and Zuko hands her his helmet over his shoulder silently. Katara sits back as she holds it, the questions piling on the tip of her tongue. Sure, she’d said _anywhere_ and she’d meant it, but it doesn’t stop her budding curiosity. She saves all of her inquiries and pours them into a single look through her opened visor once they’ve stopped again, this time in the circling driveway of a sprawling manor.

“My Uncle’s.” Zuko explains shortly, and Katara tips her head back in faint recognition. “Slide up,” he says as he dismounts and heads towards the steps. “just wait here. I’ll be right back.”

Cherry’s weight feels nice and proper under her as she slips forward onto the seat, watching as Zuko is permitted into the grand double doors of the palace-like home. She focuses on what’s in front of her, unsure of when the tears will return or when the _anger_ will come back but determined to not have it happen on the Dragon of the West’s front porch. Zuko never speaks much about his _blood_ pack outside of his mother and sister but she knows who Zuko’s uncle is from a night of too much moonshine, that Zuko formally calls him _Father_.

She’s not sure what to make of him bringing her _here_ , but she refuses to make a fool of her friend in any capacity.

The surrounding yard is more like a maze of garden than anything else, decorated with trees and peppered with rose bushes. Katara drums an absent beat onto the side of Zuko’s helmet just as thunder rolls in the distance. The double doors of the manor crack open and Zuko bounds quickly down the steps. Katara says nothing as she shifts backwards, but Zuko stops to dramatically swing his foot clear over her head like it’s nothing and she can’t help the abrupt thing of a laugh it gets out of her—a silent running joke on how much shorter she is compared to him. 

Zuko accepts his helmet over his shoulder with a tiny triumphant flash of teeth. Something about that sparks a flicker of heightened affection in her hurting heart, and she hangs onto him a little tighter than before as they’re off again.

Zuko takes them down a curving path between a pair of bushes trimmed meticulously into the shape of koi, the packed gravel soon giving away to asphalt, a street surrounded by rolling hills of an endless elm orchard. The lightest dusting of rain starts to fall just as the road turns into even gravel again. Ahead of them in the center of the large clearing is a double story minka, made modern with dark walls of glass and deep chestnut woods. Zuko slows and pulls right up to the wrap-around engawa’s steps, cutting Cherry’s engine and knocking down the kickstand.

“Why are you taking my backpack?” Katara questions, dazed after finally removing her helmet. She lets him slip it off of her anyway.

Zuko blinks at her. “Because this is the family guest house?”

“The _family_ guest house? All the way out _here?”_

“My blood pack likes their distance even when they’re getting close.” Zuko mutters, leading her through the door and into a foyer lined with greenery. He toes his boots off where the ceramic turns into polished wood and she copies him, listening intently as he goes on. “We used to stay here every other summer. My mom would visit her friends in the city and we would spend time with our cousin.”

“Lu Ten?” Katara interjects, remembering a story, gaze wandering over ancient looking murals and the iron wrought beams that line the high ceilings. She follows Zuko up the set of stairs to their immediate left at a distance, careful not to catch his scent now that they are inside.

“Yeah. He was home, actually...” Zuko stops at the first door on the wide glass and iron alcove of a landing. “This used to be my room when we stayed over. It should be comfortable—not much has changed since I was here last—but my Uncle says you’re welcome to the whole place if it pleases you.”

It’s Katara’s turn to blink. “That’s...”

“He’s nice like that, Kat.” Zuko chuckles. “Don’t worry about it.”

Shouldn’t she? His last words before whisking her away resurface in her head. She doesn’t move from her spot on the landing, even as Zuko further offers her the room by stepping forward and opening its door.

“But you’re not staying.”

Zuko’s brow furrows. “What? Of course I’m staying.”

“You—” Katara swallows and looks away, fumbling with the fabric of his hoodie around her hips. “You told Jet not to be there when you got back.”

The mention of Jet instantly brings a dark scowl to Zuko’s face, a sentiment she concurs with. His right eye narrows just as much as his left doesn’t. Traces of sage-smoke prick faintly at her nose.

“I did.” Zuko’s jaw twitches. “And I meant it. But _when_ I go back... That’s for you to decide.”

_“Oh.”_

She doesn’t mean to sound as surprised as she does but she _is_ surprised; she lives in the city alone, with her few other friends scattered to the winds, back to their families in the face of summer, a luxury that she can’t afford. The only place she can go is to her own apartment—her apartment that is filled to the brim with her ex-boyfriend’s things. The thought alone picks nastily are the yawning gap of stifled pain that crowds her ribcage, and next to it she feels a wash of unbridled appreciation. She could find no argument or reply to give her friend. 

Zuko has saved a few of her days before but never like this. She’s always been able to count on him but this feels different somehow, different in a way that almost makes her blush. 

_An alpha is offering you asylum_ , her instinct whispers. _In the middle of a private paradise, no less_.

The image of him turning his back to Jet flashes across his mind. Blush does indeed start to heat her cheeks, and she nips the inside of one with a sharpened canine to help ground herself. She needs to take her dampeners again and _soon_.

“Leave it to you...” She murmurs. “Thank you for this. I—I actually don’t even know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything.” Zuko offers her one of his rare, crooked, hundred watt grins. “How about I just give you the tour? There’s a dojo behind the garden, and a hot spring a couple of miles east...”

Both pique her interest but still she shakes her head. “Maybe later? I’d like to see the kitchens, though. I could go for some food.”

“Damn. The fridge is _definitely_ empty.” Zuko’s face falls. “I can't believe I forgot about feeding you. I guess I will have to go back out...”

Katara’s hormone fueled brain runs a loop on _feeding you_.

“That’s fine!” She says hastily. “It’s fine. You go ahead. Just show me the pantry, I’m sure there’s something for now.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Zuko leaves her bag at the frame of the bedroom door and brings her back the way they came, straight ahead from the foyer and down a shoji hall that brings them to the end of the house.

“Wow,” Katara says as she glances over the dark stainless steels and out of the floor to ceiling wall of tinted glass. Pass the engawa and down a skipping stone pathway is a beautiful and enormous garden, lush with the still light drizzle of rain. She spots what must be the roof of the dojo down a far path that starts at a torii gate. “It’s gorgeous, Zuko. Are you positive your Uncle doesn’t mind me here? I feel like I’m intruding.”

“I said not to worry, didn’t I?” Zuko levels brightening amber eyes at her. “You can relax.”

 _Relax?_ Hollow echoes of pain pound at the back of her sternum at Zuko’s words; an urge to _scream_ ; a constant reminder of the afternoon’s events like everything else is turning out to be.

Katara can only nod and assure Zuko a second time that she’ll be fine while he runs for groceries. She heaves a loud sigh of mixed relief once the front door is locked, and she beelines to the kitchen to hunt down enough ingredients and tools for a simple enough bowl of seasoned jook. She bends the meager contents into a largest coffee mug she can find for easier transport, frowning when she has to forces her grip to relax enough for the movement.

The feel and sound of trickling water lures her into a den off of the other end of the kitchen and she locks on to it, letting her senses lead her feet. She spots a small fountain along the wall, and she eats as she ambles throughout the lower level of the minka blankly.

Katara ignores her reflection as she takes in the nearly 360 views of rich wilderness through the glass surroundings. Her wandering brings her through an atrium hosting a piano, a formal dining room, an office, more intertwining dens, and what she can only call miniature libraries, for some areas are just brief halls of artifacts and a thousand other ancestral looking things. A set of golden crowns in a glittering glass display case stands alone at the end of the hall that brings her around to the opposite side of the foyer, and she finds herself in the last den across the side of the stairs. This one bears only a few windows, the walls covered almost entirely in framed photos. 

Katara makes a note to have Zuko tell her about them later and returns up the stairs, desperately shaking away the image of gentle brown eyes and the sound of a lie. The maw in her chest ebbs with a feeling she can only akin to frost’s burn.

“Relax,” she mutters to herself, remembering gold. “you can relax.”

She latches onto the word and the intent behind it, the who, and let’s it become a mantra, as well as she knows it will work. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my head it’s like this: 
> 
> kat recognizes honey for pissed off, caesium for careful, amber for amused, and topaz for desire. vice versa, i like to think zuko sees sapphire, cobalt, cerulean, and navy. 
> 
> y’know. flickering fire vs/ stirring ocean n’ all that jazz. just wanted to say lol.

* * *

She doesn’t know what she expects when she steps into Zuko’s old room but it isn’t the wall-sized bookshelf full of varying volumes like an _actual_ library, a poster set of _Love Amongst the Dragons_ decorated by swirls of each different element, or the king sized bed done in emerald silk sheets. His room at his house is nothing like it.

“What kid needs silk sheets? Must be _nice...”_ A prattle of hesitant laughter bubbles out of her; it quickly fades into faux envy as she happens upon the attached bath behind a shoji door. The jacuzzi tub is deep and the shower separate, marked with only a wall of frosted glass. 

The shower beckons her. She turns the valve and sticks her hand into the water, testing the pressure and sighing with relief when it meets her par. Katara strips right then and there, folding her friend’s sweater onto the sink’s counter before slipping out of her socks and underwear, and lastly Jet’s t-shirt. She nearly brings the shirt to her sharpened nose in a yearning bid to catch the fading traces of his scent—but the scarce weight of the fabric feels like lead in her hold, and finally a fissure of heartbreak cracks like lightning up her chest. It robs her of her breath even as the acidic tension of a sob starts at the back of her throat.

Jet, kissing another girl.

 _Her_ Jet, kissing another girl.

 _Not ours_ , instinct mourns, _not anymore_. 

_“Fuck.”_

Katara drops the shirt as the tears come; as cold envelopes her body and chills the air. The wide strip of mirror above the sink whitens with frost and the shower pipe stutters, an inevitable reaction from her medically unchecked instincts. She steps into the spray of the shower and turns the temperature valve as far as it will go, wraps her arms around her middle in the hope of holding the crumbling cavity of her chest together.

“Fuck!” Wavering anger, outweighed by the devastation of the onslaught of memories both fresh and old. Her voice falls into a pained whisper. _“Fuck_ , Jet. Fuck fuck fuck _fuck_.”

It feels like an age passes her by before she can breathe properly again, before the blur in her vision clears and the sniffles abide. The water beats numbly at her body, and with jerking movement Katara uses her bending to lift her soaked hair into a halfhearted topknot.

“Okay,” she sighs to herself, because she knows that if she doesn't talk to herself out loud she will stay stuck in her mind. “you can relax. Relax. Now wash it off Katara.” She grumbles through the last of her tears. “Wash it _all_ off.”

She lathers the silky almond scented soap at her disposal and scrubs herself practically raw with the practiced technique of her element, counting backwards from one hundred under her breath for every limb, curve, and crevice with forced determination. Her nearly militant focus is broken into when she is halfway through washing her hair and realizes that the shampoo smells like bamboo. 

_Zuko._

Katara closes her eyes as she combs her fingers through her hair and takes a deep, measured inhale, allowing the nutty sweetgrass aroma to expand her lungs. 

Zuko, who has apparently been using the same shampoo all his life. Zuko, who had gotten belligerent in her defense instead of saying _I told you so_. Zuko, who had taken control in her abrupt time of need. Zuko, who had made her feel safe and so very casually talked about keeping her fed, as if she were his to fuss over and had always been. A flicker of sparks dash across her lower spine, anxiety and something else, as she tastes the thought. Suddenly she remembers herself; Zuko, who is going to be back _any moment now_.

Her heart skips oddly, filtering through too much at once. Katara quickly rinses the suds from her hair and attacks the lengthening mass with conditioner by way of bending. _What_ was she thinking? She should’ve taken her meds first thing after finishing her food; it takes hours for it to kick. She _cannot_ be out of whack like this around her friend.

Katara stops the water, makes herself dry, and heads straight for her bag, extracting her medicine bar from the bottom. She pops the lid on _S_ for sunday and then returns to the bathroom, downing the contents with an orb of sink water in her haste. She sighs through her nose, takes a moment to finally glance over herself as she swallows, grimacing at the hickies on her hips from just last night and hating the red rim of her eyes. She rinses her face and returns to her bag again, considers her available attire as she sweeps her freshly unbound waves out of the way.

She can feel the grimace return to her mouth as she looks at the only other clothes in her possession—the clothes she’d planned on wearing _out_ tonight. As fast as she has the thought to search the closet for something to wear she douses it. Zuko has not given her permission to _actually_ use his things... She’ll have to ask. Her clothes will have to do for now.

Grateful that the white bandeau and shorts are at least as comfortable as any leisure wear, she moves back into the bathroom and slips directly into the soft, snug fabrics, then slowly dons the sheer baby blue kimono. She detests that she smiles at the embroidered golden swirls along the hems of the billowing arms and the trailing bottom—the completed outfit had been one of many as a gift from Jet. He always insisted on showing her off in things he wanted to take her out of on date nights. 

Her heart stutters in pain. She looks over herself in the mirror and huffs at her quickly curling hair, making a mental note to braid it the second she finds the energy. 

Katara realizes abruptly that she does not know what to do with herself. Here she is in a borrowed home of the biggest yakuza head on this side of the caldera, looking good enough to fuck yet running away in an attempt to lick her wounds instead.

And for what?

_Kissing another girl?_

The anger rolls in, right with the thunder and the drum of heavy rain that finally deigns to pour.

Katara tidies up the bathroom and flicks the light off, walks through the bedroom and then breezes into the alcove hall. Maybe she _will_ visit the dojo...

The sharp inhale that reaches her ears brings her out of her clouding thoughts, and Katara looks up to see Zuko at the railing, poised to ascend the last few steps. A flush touches her cheeks. He’s _looking_ at her, shifting gold and emerging caesium, a guarded color.

“It’s the only—” She blurts it before Zuko can say anything. “He... he was supposed to take me dancing tonight.”

Zuko makes a noncommittal sound as he slowly starts up the last stairs. Katara feels oddly rooted to the spot as he nears, as she notes that Zuko is positively soaked from head to toe, the clinging black fabric of his long-sleeve tee and jeans leaving little enough to the imagination. Katara presses her tongue to the roof of her mouth and mentally berates herself for not taking her medication first thing this morning. She’s seen Zuko in considerably less from pool parties and all kinds of fights but even _if_ her meds had happened to lapse she’d always been accompanied with her significant. Now she’s _alone_ with him, and until the pills work their magic he affects her all the same.

“Earth to Katara...” Katara blinks, willing her gaze to focus. Zuko laughs quietly at her, all traces of changing color free from his bright golden eyes. “You okay, Kat? I mentioned kelp wraps from Hoya’s and you didn’t even budge.”

“Why are you wet?”

She resists the urge to facepalm _. For fucks sake, brain._

It’s Zuko’s turn to blink, and his raised eyebrow quickly drops into a furrow. “It’s raining. Seriously, Katara. Are you alright?”

Maybe she should just tell him? If he hadn’t been staying she wouldn’t bother, but he _is_ staying. It’s only fair, isn’t it? To let someone of your perfect biological mating match be aware that you might be a little... agitated... while waiting for your dampeners to work? Before Zuko she kept clear away from any alpha that wasn’t her _brother_ ; how does any omega tell an alpha outside of their blood pack that they’re in heat without making it seem like..? Katara bites the inside of her cheek and glances away from Zuko, contemplating—“Raining,” she parrots, “ _right_ ,”—but he practically makes the decision for her. 

“Tell me.” He demands. Katara tracks the line of his biceps under his sleeves as he folds his arms, and she subconsciously presses herself into the door at her back. “I can’t help take care of you if you don’t.”

“That’s not your job.” Katara mutters.

“It’s not.” Zuko agrees, though something about it sounds off. “But I’m going to do it anyway because we’re friends. Best friends, I believe _you_ insisted, and I’m pretty sure that this is what best friends do when you sever a tie with a significant. Even if the significant is my pack. Now spit it out.”

Katara concedes with a measured sigh. “My dampeners,” she says, catching Zuko’s eye. “I didn’t take them on time this morning, so...”

“So?” A beat of silence as Zuko gives her a careful once over, eyes lingering almost lazily before widely finding hers again. _“Oh.”_

“I just took them a second ago.” Katara feels her entire face warm. “It’ll, uh. It will be a... while, but you don’t have to worry. I was headed to the dojo anyway.”

“I’m not worried, Katara, and you shouldn’t be either. It’s okay.” Zuko intones sternly. “You don’t have to— _hide_ or anything, Kat. And I know you’ve seen the dens. Why don’t you pick one before going to the dojo? I’ll fix it for you if you want.”

 _“What?”_ Katara’s eyes narrow suspiciously, even as a syrupy feeling of affection blooms under the gap in her ribs at the offer of a scented nest. “Why are you being so good about this?”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

Another beat of silence. Zuko laughs. “Just realized that _you’re_ the weird one, did you?” 

“Shut up!” Katara abandons her caution with a timid grin and steps forward to shove at her friend playfully. Relief, for the moment, floods her body. “It’s different where I’m from and you know it.”

“I will do well to keep that in mind, your highness.”

“Says the Western Prince.” Katara jokes. She quiets, squeezing gently at his arm where her hands still rest. He’s warm as always, inside and out. “Thank you. Again.”

“Stop with all the thanks already. You‘ve always been a good friend to me, _Kindred_.” Zuko says wryly. A surprised sound gets muffled into his shoulder as he swiftly pulls her in for a short embrace. Already, he’s barely even damp anymore, and cinder-smoke and bamboo flood her nose as his warmth envelopes her. “This isn’t even the least I can do; anything you want just ask. I’m good for it.”

Katara quickly returns the hug through the thick savory haze that bombards her senses and then just as quickly steps away. Even if she doesn’t have to hide she still isn’t immune to him, and she will _certainly_ keep a fair distance. 

“You’ll regret this when I’m sobbing on all of your clothes later.” Katara chuckles. “Speaking of clothes—wait, you said something about kelp wraps—?”

“Ah.” Zuko laughs. “ _There_ she is.”


	4. Chapter 4

* * *

Alone in the kitchens, Katara rifles through the takeout bags that litter the island counter. Zuko had shooed her away after telling her that he’d be in the shower and promised that real groceries were pending, apparently having gone through the trouble of having them delivered to his uncle’s manor. She smiles as she locates her prize, humming happily when the halibut and earth tomato filling touches her tongue. All thoughts of visiting the dojo flee her mind, anger bated and set aside. It’s hard to stay mad when there’s Hoya’s to be eaten.

A wry smirk tugs at her mouth. Leave it to Zuko.

Katara scoops a second wrap between her fingers and meanders around the minka again, eyeballing the different styles of the dens that the lavish home hosts. Zuko’s offer to fix one for her has not left her mind. In fact, it sits heavily at the forefront. Right along with the simmering pool of fire that weighs at her core with the mere thought of it. 

It’s a dangerous idea, she realizes. Even if it’s meant in the most innocent of ways, her still heat-addled brain does not make the separation from a friend offering and that of a willing match. 

Katara swallows the last of her food and bites her lip as she stands in the middle of the den she’s stopped in, the one across the kitchen with a glass view of the gardens _and_ the side of the house, a fireplace and the softest rug she’s ever touched. Sprawling green made lush with the storm greets her gaze, for miles and miles, where an alpha has offered her asylum.

The warmth in her gut flips and roils, her breath quickening and a toneless purr emitting from her throat as her mouth salivates.

Jet’s words echo in her ears— _you can’t leave like this with him_ , the meaning all the more clear now—but the words are quickly drowned out by the image of him with his tongue in someone else’s mouth.

“Is this the one you want?”

Katara whirls on the balls of her feet, heart hammering within its confines. “Stop sneaking up on me!”

“I’m not sneaking, you’re just distracted.” Zuko says from where he leans in the archway. “Besides, you’re having a shit day...”

Katara swallows at the sight of him, takes a delicate step backwards that is for his safety more than her own. Zuko’s changed into a tank top and new jeans, a robe hanging from the crooks of his arms so that every tattoo that had been hidden away under his sleeves are on sinewy display, but it’s his hair—unbound and resting in long, damp waves around the cut of his jawline that truly makes her _itch—_

“—aand you’re not listening. _Katara_.” The sharpness in Zuko’s voice makes her gaze snap from where she is drinking in the bob of his adam’s apple. “Is there something you want from me?”

An innocent question but nonetheless it makes her insides liquify. There had been a hint of a command underlining Zuko’s words, enough _compel_ to grab her attention and pull her clear from her hormone driven thoughts, even though she isn’t necessarily a part of his pack; in the way only an alpha can. 

The gold in Zuko’s iris shifts as he looks at her with waiting eyes. Knowing eyes. She considers his question.

_Is there something you want from me?_

“That depends.” Katara croaks. “Would you leave if I needed you to?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. “Anything.”

Instinct whispers.

 _Just ask,_ he’d said.

“Then yes, this is the den.” She says, watching Zuko nod. “I just want to tell you that I—” Katara swallows and looks away. “I seem to be having a really hard time thinking when you’re near me right now. It’s...” Breathtaking. Different. Inappropriate. Katara says none of those things, just steps further into the den towards the pallet of blankets of pillows laid out in the conversation pit that fills the corner of the room. “Maybe I should wait in the kitchen while you—? I don’t want to, um. _Overstep_ , your generosity, here.” 

“I see.” Zuko says shortly, and she turns to catch him hot on her heels, startling her once again. She stills when he reaches out and gently tucks her hair behind her ear. “You should know by now that my generosity knows no bounds when it comes to you.”

 _I’m good for it,_ he’d said...

Zuko tilts his head, “Ask me to help you, Katara,” and her body sings with a cocktail of shock and need. “ _ask me_ to make it better for you. It’s the _only_ way I can.”

He is not just talking about her spiraling heat and she almost hates herself for knowing it, but her heat is _all_ she can focus on. Slick, hot and gushing, pools between her legs. Her breath catches again as she becomes privy to Zuko’s baser of reactions to her symptoms, watches as his nostrils flare and as his mouth parts, the barest wisps of steam curling out from under his peeking canines as he tastes her on the air. As quickly as it happens it’s over, the nearly imperceptible shift from gold to topaz the only indication that she had affected him at all. 

Stupidly, she aches for Jet—Jet, who had only been able to offer pets of reassurance when she was between doses like this, Jet who is a _liar_ —yet here Zuko stands, offering himself up in the way she’s only ever craved biologically—in ways she’s only ever had a brief dream of in the moonshine-drunk privacy of her apartment.

“I—” Katara’s voice has returned to whispers. “Please, Zuko,”

 _Make it stop,_ she means to say, but she hardly finishes uttering her friend’s name before he descends on her. Zuko holds her chin and lifts her face so that he can run the tip of his nose along the line of her throat, no doubt seeking out her own scent, and she lets him. His thumb caresses over her bottom lip. A quiet whimper escapes her mouth.

A soothing rumble shudders in the air between them as Zuko raises his head. Her heart pounds dangerously against her sternum at the sound, a trill of anxiety and excitement and slowly dawning acceptance. He looks her in the eye, something old and distraught interrupting the hypnotizing sway of his stare. With a huff Zuko suddenly bares his teeth, and then he is slanting his mouth over hers, cupping her face with both hands.

The war of shock and need crescendo into a raging tsunami inside of her as she easily, _too easily_ , fits her lips against his. 

Zuko’s purr morphs into a growl when she mindlessly presses forward, and she whimpers again as her traitorress body absolutely _tingles_ at the contact. His mouth is firm and searing, tasting faintly of mint, and then he is breaking away, leaving her gasping for air to press wet dragonfly kisses up her jaw.

“Shit. Sorry. I’m sorry. Spirits, Kat,” Zuko murmurs against the spot under her ear, his hands falling to her lower back. He pulls her closer. “I—you’re _responsive._ More than I ever... _Spirits._ ” 

Her mind whirls in circles. More responsive than he ever... _what?_ The implications are deep, uncharted waters that hold no merit of exploring in the face of her quickly slipping control. 

“You actually kissed me.” She zeros in on that instead, her voice low and husky and nearly unrecognizable in her daze. “You actually _kissed me...”_

“I shouldn’t have.” Zuko agrees. “But I’m more than glad to do it again if you want.”

A hesitation niggles at her suddenly. She has no idea what kind of partner Zuko is in this aspect—doesn't know _any_ alpha in this aspect, for that matter, because _that’s_ what the fucking dampeners are for—she only knows textbook things and information gleaned from scraps of stories. She only knows the heralded _Western Prince_ and what she’s heard in secondhand tales.

What she _doesn’t_ know is if she’s upset, but what she ultimately determines is that she doesn't want anything to _end_. 

Katara fists her hands in Zuko’s shirt and tries to keep track of her thoughts through the thick, heady, teakwood scent that permeates the air next to the saccharine aroma that is her own. It’s _him,_ she realizes, and it’s intoxicating in its newness to her, like tasting apple cider during a Caldera City winter for the first time. She swallows a loud moan when a hot wetness presses over her scent gland, Zuko’s tongue, and then his teeth, his lips, nipping and suckling and rendering her into a shaking, gasping mess. 

Wordless, she stands on her toes and captures his earlobe between her teeth in a beg that runs more on instinct than rationale, for how sure she is that words will fail her. Katara lets her canines sharpen and drags them down the slope of Zuko’s neck, scrapes her nails over the taut, dragon-inked muscle of his shoulders and leaves angry welts of suggestion in her wake. 

“Kat.” Zuko growls where his lips rest against her ear. “That’s not gonna work, Kat. Use your words or let me do it my way.”

She shivers. How does he see through her like that? “I—I’d _like—_ ”

“ _Nah-uh._ Katara...” He sighs, an exhausted reprimand. Zuko pulls back and tilts her face up with a single finger, looks at her with flashing topaz and shifting gold. He strides forward as he searches her face, walking her back into the glass walls where he becomes cast in the looming grays of the storm. “How many times do I have to ask you what you _want?”_

Her instinct howls, and Katara shivers again as she attempts to gather enough brain functionality to form sentences. It’d gone offline the second he’d started crowding her between his tall frame and the wall of glass.

 _“This,_ ” She manages to answer. “I want you to—want to be—” she whines. “ _dominated._ Right now, Zuko. Need it. _Need it._ I’ve never been—” 

_“Never?”_ Zuko interrupts vehemently, and it sounds more as if he’s speaking to himself. Katara nods, looking away, and suddenly Zuko is picking her up—and _yes, please_ , her instinct whispers—pressing her fully into the cool glass and spreading her thighs comfortably around his waist like she weighs feathers. She bites back another whine; almost cocks her head in deferrance at the boldness of his touch alone. “ _Kat_ ,” he says knowingly, high and strained, gripping her chin again so she has no choice but to look at him. “ _use your words_.”

Katara wraps shaking fingers around the wrist he’s using to hold her face steady, lowers his hand to settle around her throat. “Please.”

“Fuck.” Zuko stills entirely, curses again. “ _Fuck,_ Katara.” 

“Oh.” She whispers dumbly. 

Her brain hadn’t exactly gotten anywhere near that far—all she’s been able to think about is how well he could hold her down and scent mark her, how the lines of his intricate and vibrant dragon scales would pull taut over muscle in the reflection of the glass walls while he pressed her into the rug and made her _submit_ —but _Zuko_? _Fucking_ _her?_

In a flash the image in her mind shifts and changes. Saliva pools in from her bottom canines. An angry, aching pulse of need flushes through her core. A shiver works it’s way down her spine, and she thinks she might just vibrate right out of her rebelling skin. 

“Of course _.”_ Zuko is saying, eyes closed and taking deep breaths through the part of his reddened lips. _“Of course_ you want it my way. I _knew...”_ He mutters, gracing the line of her neck with his thumb. Then, with topaz eyes locking with hers: “Do you trust me?”

Her breathless answer is as automatic as the affront that pulls at her mouth. “Yes, Zuko.” She whispers, and her instinct hums in anticipatory agreement. ”I trust you. Of course I trust you.”


	5. Chapter 5

* * *

Zuko puts her down.

Any protest dies immediately on Katara’s tongue at Zuko’s look when he steps out of her space, hands lingering none and taking his warmth with him. He raises a finger in denial when she tries to shakily step after him, cuts a sharp glare at her with hooded topaz eyes and commands her to stay put. The chill that hangs around her at his abrupt lack of proximity recedes into her body and sinks into her bones, and her response comes out snappish.

“What? No— _why?_ ”

“Easy, Kat.” Zuko tells her, silky and undercut with a hard note of authority. “ _As I say._ Understand?”

Katara inhales sharply and clenches her hands into fists at her sides. He’s never directed _that_ tone at her before. With pack mates, sure. With _lackeys,_ _sure_ , but not _ever_ with her. 

Something in her racks loose at the delivery; the gleam in Zuko’s steady gaze, the _dare_ hidden in his words, as if a sinister promise were to follow. Her instinct says _obey_ yet her body demands _defy_. The feeling sends confusion riddling across her fuzzing mind, because for all that her instinct and body disagree she finds that she very desperately wants to do _both_. 

A discontent sound starts in her chest. What happens if she listens? What happens if she _doesn’t?_

She lifts her chin hesitantly. “If I don’t?”

“I will make you.” Zuko snaps quietly. The smoky timbre of his voice drops an octave. _“Understand?”_

Her core flutters, an itching ache. The discontent sound in her chest forming into a whine. Zuko hasn’t moved a muscle but something about his presence suddenly makes her want to cower; to drop and posture like—like a _proper bitch_ and—

Katara chokes on the dregs of her pooling saliva, disbelieving at the depth that her lapse in heat takes her—Zuko’s seamless shift in demeanor has _unlocked_ something in her—she can’t remember a time when she’d ever experienced such _blatantly_ omega thoughts. She shakes her head, grasping at straws with her crumbling control, and then promptly stills at the sound of the warning growl Zuko gives. It’s loud and reverberating, echoes off the glass and right down her spine.

“You intend to disobey,” Zuko phrases it as less of a question and more of a passing inconvenience as his gaze slides leisurely over her figure. Katara’s eyes widen and she shakes her head again. She remains still otherwise, stuck between proclaiming her own thoughts on the matter and waiting with bated breath to see what Zuko is going to do.

“No,” he says, answering his own half-question. His eyes flick between her own as his voice softens. “you just don’t recognize what this is, do you, Kat?”

 _“No.”_ Katara lets out a long exhale in relief, suddenly overly grateful that Zuko reads her so well. She moves to take a step forward and stops. Zuko smiles at that. “What now?”

“You have asked for me, Katara. Here I am, your Alpha, in this moment,” a rumbling growl accompanies Zuko’s voice. “so you will address me as such and you will defer to me as such. Am I clear?”

 _Oh. “Oh,”_ her hands shake. “y-yes. Very.”

Zuko bares a canine at her, all softness absent. “Yes _what?_ ”

Katara furrows her brow, still struggling to fully comprehend. _Yes what?_ Her heart skips as Zuko’s glare hardens, as he takes a single step forward, as her instinct hums loudly at the advance. In a second it clicks; the words tumble out of her mouth before she can even fully register them, in the very same second that she instinctively drops her eyes and turns her head.

 _“Yes, Alpha,”_ she breathes.

She chances a glance upward when for long seconds she is met with only silence. Katara blinks. Zuko is no longer in front of her—he’s back under the archway, holding himself up on the wall with a white-knuckled grip and blazing yellow eyes. 

Katara holds back a startled gasp. She’s unfamiliar with yellow.

“You—” Zuko starts gruffly, strained. He points to the spot at her feet. “Sit, Katara.” He practically barks the order. ”Do _not_ move.”

Katara drops to her knees with barely a thought. “Yes, Alpha.”

Zuko disappears with a snarl and a curse, leaving her with her heart hammering in her ears and her breathing off kilter.

What just happened?

All at once her instinct has shifted from a hum to a heavy pulse that beats in her blood, intensifying the mental haze of her heat into something thick and syrupy that she wants nothing more than to sink into. She’s never followed an order so easily; and how _easily_ the title of _Alpha_ had rolled off her tongue...

Yet that ember of hesitant fear burns steadily in her chest, refusing to be doused. This is her first time being cared for by an alpha in any outside capacity—and Zuko is no regular alpha, she _knows_.

“But he’s my friend,” Katara’s eyes fall shut as she mutters to herself. “this is okay, right? It’s okay to—to _want_ him to take care of me in this way? To need it?”

Her heart thuds, skipping harshly as if in answer. As if she hadn’t all but literally begged him to. 

“This isn’t wrong,” she whispers, then with a firmness as angry brown eyes flash across her mind. “it’s _not._ ”

Then why does she feel so fucking guilty? 

She lets out a small, frustrated growl, because she knows why; because only _hours_ ago she was still Jet’s girlfriend. 

A sharp crack sounds from the distance, followed by a frame-rattling roll of thunder. The rain picks up, falling harder. An acrid burn washes over her ribs.

Katara clenches her jaw and wonders where Zuko has disappeared off to, why he left snarling the way he did. Every second she’s alone her mind wanders away to Jet, ripping her breath away and sending a wave of pain across the gap in her chest anew. She lets out a long breath of snow, desperately trying to compress her haphazard emotions into some semblance of order.

“Katara?”

Her eyes flick open at the note of alarm that undercuts Zuko’s voice, and the first thing she realizes is that her vision is blurry and that her lashes are wet. She touches at her cheek in surprise as Zuko starts to near. When on earth did she start crying?

Zuko strides forward and drops the backpack he’s holding to the floor, and Katara startles as he is kneeling before her, catching a tear and staring at it with a mix of muted trepidation and anger. 

“What is it?” Bright gold eyes meet her gaze, and suddenly his hands are on her, one trailing through the ends of her hair and the other sliding across her waist so that he can tuck her into the crook of his arm and pull her into his lap. “Tell me,” Zuko demands, then: “ _Agni_. You’re freezing!”

A burst of mirthless laughter falls from her mouth as his scent of cinder-smoke floods her senses again, as his natural warmth sends away her natural cold. Katara wipes furiously at her face, embarrassed for having no doubt ruined whatever moment they were having, or were _about_ to have. “Sorry, Zuko. I am—I’m _still_ —just— _fuck_.”

“Hm... Maybe later.” Zuko says absently. He lowers one of her wrists and tilts her chin towards him, his gaze narrowing. “You thought about him while I was gone, didn’t you?”

Katara represses a shiver, sucks in a sharp breath at how _close_ Zuko’s face is to hers—and did he just imply what she _thinks_ he just implied? She studies his eyes, steady and darkening gold as they meet hers, deciding on how to tell him that she never really _stopped_ thinking about Jet—and that, no, maybe _not_ so later because his scent is slowly setting her blood humming again—but he apparently takes her silence to be answer enough.

Zuko sighs as he stands, gathering her easily up in arms once more. Katara bites back a small moan at the feeling of his hand burning an imprint onto her thigh, stuck between wanting to wallow and wanting to return to the heady atmosphere that had sprouted between them.

“I hate seeing you like this.” Zuko admits quietly, taking her to the conversation pit. He slants a careful, sly look; with honeyed eyes that aren’t for her. “Was I this bad when I broke up with Mai?”

Katara’s burst of laughter is genuine this time. “Not at all. At least, a lot less crying and a lot more _‘Jet if you fuck her against the wall one more time I’m gonna make you run the entire West Perimeter!’_ ”

“You were doing it on purpose.” Zuko glowers as he kneels to set her down, to which she cavils, and to which he wags a finger.

“ _He_ was doing it on purpose.” Katara snorts as she curls up amongst the pillows, gaze sliding sideways so that she doesn’t glare at being chastised. “I was just the happy reciprocant. Besides, it got you out of your room, right?”

Zuko only rolls his eyes. “You two were _awful_ together,” he jests, retreating towards his discarded backpack. 

“Were we?” Katara misses the answer that Zuko mutters, so she quiets and sinks further into the cushions. “I thought...” another sigh escapes her, and she lets her eyes fall shut again as a roll of thunder rattles the walls. “I _thought..._ ”

A pained whine escapes her.

“I know, princess. I know.” 

Zuko’s voice comes from farther away, and she cracks an eye back open to see him with his backpack in hand; he is making his way to every foot of the den, touching things and running tiny squares of cloth down his neck before leaving them in discrete little places. 

Her breath catches at the sights of the action, of watching him start the beginnings of a nest, and she sits up silently, eyes open wide and heart hammering in her ears again. Zuko glances over his shoulder and directly at her as he lifts another piece of cloth from his bag. He presses it to the scent gland under his jaw as he walks, circling the room with her at his epicenter.

Katara swallows thickly. “Zuko—”

 _“Alpha.”_ He corrects her instantly; easily, without a second glance or a pause in step. “You were saying?”

But she’s not saying, not anymore, no—she’s _scenting,_ now, nose instinctively tilted to the air to catch thickening pockets of cinder-smoke and teakwood, traces of bamboo—she’s _salivating_ , her canines sharpening to points against her bottom lip and her tongue pressed into the roof of her mouth—she’s _shaking_ , her fingers stuck in a nearly frozen grip in the soft crimson down of the large pillow beneath her hands.

She watches raptly, in silence save for the harsh breaths that she takes through her nose, because her mouth is so full of drool that she has to swallow constantly and she dare not open it. Her instinct sings as Zuko's task draws him near, as she trains her gaze over the swirl of blue and red dragons that lay inked in the lines of his powerful frame, down where she cannot see, but where she knows their tails split over depictions of blades on his lower back, and then around again to where she’s seen them disappear along the sharpened _v_ of his navel.

He is in front of her before she knows it, dropping his backpack and crouching before her once more, arms resting leisurely on his knees from where he perches at the lip of the pit. Katara traces the cross crossing of veins in his hands upward with her gaze, right back to scale-inked muscle and then straight into shifting topaz eyes.

Zuko smiles from where he towers over her, mouth quirking at the corner slow and satisfied.

“How do you feel?”

Hurt. Desperate. Weak and strong, all at once. Like wounded prey that’s been chased for miles and backed into a corner, willing to do whatever it takes to make a safe escape—to find a place to curl up and hope that the bleeding stops. To find its own next meal. 

_Starving_. 

All other thought flees her mind. Katara swallows, unthinking of how much more terribly it aches with her glands working overdrive. She sits entranced as the lengthening mass of Zuko’s hair falls freely over his shoulder to frame the side of his face. The movement sends currents of teakwood her way, and even though his words register she knows that she can offer no verbal answer—just the hot rush of slick that threatens to seep past her panties and soak her thighs.

Zuko’s nostrils flare. He leans forward to ghost his fingertips down the center of her working throat, where a long, needy purr erupts out of her.

“Use your words.”

Katara snatches his hand in hers before he can pull away, brings it back to her throat. “Hold me down,” she says, breathless and dizzy. “please, Alpha.”

With a single graceful bound and a low growl Zuko lands over her, caging her between his thighs as he curls his hand around the side of her neck and firmly presses her onto her back. Katara gasps at the action; at the searing heat of his palm and how it spreads like feeding embers down her chest and leaves roiling desire heavy in her gut. There’s that syrupy lightheadedness seeping into her mind again and this time she latches onto it; let’s the song of her instinct and Zuko’s immense presence lull her into that wonderful new headspace.

“Oh, that’s good. _Very_ good,” Katara watches steam curl up from Zuko’s mouth through glazed eyes, heart skipping at the praise even if she can’t comprehend what it’s _for_. “you’re a _natural_ , Kat. Perfect. Nice and easy for me.”

A strangled mewl of protest works its way out of her when Zuko sits back on his knees to let his robe fall from his shoulders. He hushes her with a low rumble that reads of mixed promises as he folds the silk and tosses it aside. Katara squirms impatiently, wanting his hands back on her, wanting _him_ on her, with teeth and tongue over her aching glands like before.

Zuko must read it in the way she reaches for him, and he does her one better by reaching out to hook one trembling thigh over his waist and laying himself flush against her. Katara’s hands fly to his inked shoulders, and she echoes the low groan he gives as he slots his nose against the slope of her neck and takes a long inhale. Zuko’s frame is heavy and hot over hers, a welcome weight that makes her limbs lax and a content litany of tiny vibrations stutter out of her chest as his hands settle over her ribs.

Later she might think of him as tenderly holding her together, but right now she knows nothing more than the instinctual need to be carefully broken apart.

“This what you wanted?” Katara shivers at the commanding bite in Zuko’s voice. He licks a scorching wet stripe over the hollow of her throat, presses fleeting kisses under her jaw, and, _oh_ , _La_ — “ _Answer_ me, Katara.”

 _“Yes, Alpha.”_ Katara buries her nose in Zuko’s hair with a moan as she is awarded with a sharp nip at one of her scent glands, and suddenly her addled brain catches up with his command to use her mouth; suddenly she can’t _shut up_. “Please, Zuko. Please, please, _please_ do not leave me alone again. I need this,” she whimpers. “I need _you._ ”

Zuko rears above her, looks down at her with that unfamiliar, terrifying yellow glow to his eyes that makes her want to snap her head to the side and bare her neck to him.

She does, when his lip curls back into a snarl over his sharpened canines. She drops her gaze and tips her head back as far as she can, begging.

Zuko drops his mouth to her neck with a long, guttural moan. His hands slide down to her hips as he moves and shifts, gripping at her with a possessive intent that makes her instinct howl.

“You’ve got me,” he growls, and it’s the last thing she registers before he pulls her hips to his in an agonizing, deliberate grind. “ _fuck_ , Kat. You’ve got me so much more than you know.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> posting before i end up staring at it for another two weeks. comments are fuel ♡.

* * *

“Fuck,” Zuko is cursing. Katara’s tongue is thick against the roof of her mouth but _oh_ , does she _agree_. “ _fuck_. Fuck, I’m sorry. I keep—”

It takes her a second to emerge from her haze to realize that he’s gone completely still over her, face buried in her neck and arms wound right around her abdomen—hips pressed firmly against hers but resolutely unmoving.

“ _Alpha_ ,” she says slowly, frowning when Zuko seems to still even more. She tugs at his hair. “why did you stop?”

“ _Because_.” Zuko snaps. Katara’s mouth clicks shut, and Zuko presses fleeting, apologetic kisses against her shoulder with a sigh. “Because you went down so _easily_. So good _,_ just for _me_ , Kat, and _I—_ ” his kisses turn into nips. “I... I _almost..._ ” 

He tapers off with a frustrated growl and rolls them over, purrs quietly at the little mewl of surprise that falls out of her at the new position, her thighs straddling his waist. 

Zuko stares up at her with shifting topaz, traces of vanishing yellow.

“I’m not going to give you anything that you don’t ask me for,” he says. “and what you _asked_ me for is a little dominance—to stay, and to hold you down—and I will. But you definitely didn’t ask for me to let my control slip like that just now. It won’t happen again, Katara. Prince’s honor.”

Katara blinks blearily, heat simmering impatiently and painfully in her gut as she attempts to pour over her friend’s words. 

_Lost control?_

“Stop overthinking it,” Zuko chuckles. He slides his palms up her sides, snapping her from her train of thought at the trail of warmth he leaves behind on her bare skin. “I swear to you that there’s no need to worry over it. Just focus on letting me take care of you how _you_ want, okay? Focus on how it feels...”

Zuko gives her no real time to reply. A soft gasp falls from her mouth when he reaches up to firmly press two fingers against the scent gland under her jaw. Pleasure riddled pain shoots down her spine from the tender spot of flesh, and her breath hitches into fast, deep heaves when Zuko curls his hand around her throat again. He tugs gently at first, then with demand, and Katara follows as he guides her to lay her head against his chest. She nuzzles instinctively at the jut of his collarbone, a low rumble starting in her at the headiness of his scent. 

Zuko runs his thumb in soothing circles against her neck, his unoccupied arm curling around her lower back to hold her to him. “Good,” he emits a steady purr. “see? Much better.”

Better... Is it? 

The patter against the windows picks up, a sharp howl of wind passing through the evergreens. Flashes of lightning send shadows flickering almost eerily across the dimly lit den, the rolls of distant thunder synonymous with the mixed wash of emotions that stir in Katara’s chest.

Katara takes a deep breath and absently traces the bright blue of a dragon scale on Zuko’s pectoral with the tip of her finger, wondering at the sudden change in posture that he exudes. 

The vibration of his continuous soothing growl makes her limbs take up that lax, fatigue-like heaviness despite the direction of her thoughts, and she edges slowly near that airy headspace as she counts the cadence of Zuko’s steady heartbeat.

Any note of previous aggression he’d been showing seems to have bled clean out of him after his brief moment of frustration, and with it her urges to both _defy_ and _obey._

She just _is_ , now; the impatient heat under her skin down to nothing but a smolder, the pure anticipation that had started singing in her blood now a nonexistent hum under the weight of his arm over her and his startlingly calm presence.

Katara finds, even with the lightness seeping into her body, that she immediately _misses_ it. Misses the dare in Zuko’s tone, the demand, the way he’d hovered over her and pressed her so roughly into the crimson cushions of the conversation pit.

She finds, with no little amount of startling self awareness, that she misses the modicum of fear, too. The thrilling sense of _danger_ that had come with Zuko’s unfamiliar yellow eyes and apparent lost control—the fleeting hiss of her instinct that told her to _beware_ , because something wild and predatory was near.

_I’m not going to give you anything that you don’t ask me for._

Katara presses her nose further against Zuko’s warm skin, nearly dizzy from the concentration of his scent and just as disoriented from the mental pathway that his words have taken her. 

Again and again he tells her to seek his permissions... To _just ask_ because he’s _good for it_. 

Did she _not_ already ask him for... for _whatever_ that was that he claims to be unsolicited?

Did she not already beg _for_ him?

 _Surely_ his aggressive behavior towards her counts as a part of the domination she seeks, the domination that he himself has already agreed to give her..?

Katara lets out a quiet whine, wanting to bark and shout as she _once again_ comes face to face with the gap in her knowledge on how to properly navigate the requisites of her secondary gender. She feels bereft; bereft and downright _silly_ for not knowing of how to actually ask an alpha for anything as an omega in need without making it seem like she wants to be _knotted_ or _mated_. She feels _out of control_ , and not at all in the good way that Zuko has been making her feel.

She feels the haze in her head starting to dissipate in the wake of her budding distress, even as a rush of wetness floods out of her at the mere memory of him towering over her, rumbling her praise for doing nothing more than laying here and following his instructions...

Another rush of wet slicks her thighs, this time at the given possibility of not being denied the laundry list of things that have piled up on the tip of her tongue. 

Under her ear Zuko’s heart nearly skips, an almost imperceptible shift in his pulse that she only detects due to proximity. On her hip, his fingers tighten. Her own frustration swells as her instinct whispers at her to act—on _what_ , she isn’t quite sure—but what upsets her most is that she does not know _how_ , _will not_ know how, without further guidance—that up until now, Jet and his fluffy orange handcuffs and his lips growling smutty things against her ear while he fucked her is as close as she’s _ever_ gotten to being properly dominated. 

Katara swallows thickly around the saliva pooling in from her canines. She ignores the tightening of sharp anxiety that sprouts out of the wound in her chest, takes a long, measured inhale, and then opens her mouth.

“Alpha.”

She hates that her voice cracks but Zuko only rumbles in approval. “What is it, princess?”

Her mouth works over the words, and she forces herself to blurt them before the tiny flicker of gumption she’s gathered dies along with them in the back of her mouth.

“I’m _not_ worried about... I _want_ you to touch me, like that.” Katara tilts her head back to look at him. “Please.”

Zuko stills, narrows sharp topaz eyes at her. “Come again?”

“But I _haven’t_ ,” she argues, thinking of the way his mouth looks when he says _fuck_ and the sound of her name right after. “but I need— _want_ to. Want you to _make_ me. Whatever _that_ was...” She shudders. “that... _control slip_... I want _that_. I want to _feel_ that.”

The hand at her neck stills entirely. “Katara—” 

“ _Alpha_ ,” Katara cuts him off before he can deny her. “I’m _asking_ you.”

Zuko shuts his eyes. 

“Spirits,” he whispers, and long seconds go by before he looks at her again. “you might very well be the end of me. Do you even _know_ what you’re asking for?”

Katara sits up on her palms, bottom lip between her teeth and hyper aware of Zuko’s hands still resting on her body.

“I’m asking for you,” she says, and her instinct howls at the intensifying scent of teakwood that hangs in the air. “all of you. On me. _In_ me—” a deafening growl erupts from Zuko, his hand on her hip tightening enough to bruise, and Katara revels in it with a needy gasp. “I want you, Zuko. And I’ll keep begging if I have to.”

“You _will_ beg,” Zuko says sharply. His seamless shift between _friend_ and _alpha_ nearly renders her useless. “make no mistake, Katara.”

“I... I don’t think I am,” she whispers with conviction. Defiance swells within her at once at his tone, and she dares to roll her hips back so that her core slides roughly over his denim clad hips. She shivers. “please, Alpha. I’ve been waiting since you kissed me. I want—”

“Tell me,” Zuko demands darkly. He sits up from the cushions in a deliberate pace, hand sliding up from the dip of her back and into her hair at her nape, where he tightens his fist and uses the leverage to firmly snap her head back and expose the column of her throat to him. 

Katara lets out a long, high keen of blind, pleading desire but Zuko is apparently having none of it. “Oh, don’t stop using your words _now_ , princess—I need to hear you. I’d _better_ hear you, since you want it so fucking _bad_.”

Lust scores down her spine. Her walls clench painfully around nothing, and a needy thing of a sob starts in the back of her throat. 

_Oh_ , she thinks daftly; giddily. 

_Obey!_ her instinct howls. 

“You said—” Zuko pulls a sharp hiss from between her teeth when he uses his other hand to roughly palm the curve of her ass. “y-you _said_ that I’ve got you more than I know,” she breathes, meeting his gaze as best as she can. Katara pushes back against his hand, wishing to the Spirits that he would just _touch her_ where she wants it most. “I w-want to _know_ , Alpha. _Show me_ ” she begs. “ _please_.”

A deep, broken moan reverberates out of Zuko, and Katara hopes that means when she locks eyes with him next, firefly yellow will strip away the last of her anxieties and stare down her soul. 

In less than a second Zuko’s mouth is at her neck, biting and suckling a trail up to the scent glands under her jaw. Her breath hitches as tantalizing bolts of pleasured pain sends slick rushing out of her aching center. She whimpers when Zuko pauses to take a deep inhale of her scent, his nose against her oversensitive skin.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he drawls the word huskily into her ear. Katara moans, hoping to hear her name next. Zuko does not disappoint her. “Katara, do you have _any_ idea what the scent of you like this does to me? How _hard_ I’ve been trying _all day_ not to let it make me into an _animal_ —and here you are now, inviting the wild thing into your den.”

Katara is trembling, mind on the edge of something heavy, breath coming in ragged tufts of snow that wisp away into steam the moment it meets the charged air of Zuko’s body heat. The hand in her hair loosens, and the hand on her ass comes up to grip her chin and pull her face level. Her heart skips dangerously at the luminescent yellow gaze that meets hers.

Zuko’s pupils have dilated into narrow slits, the length of his canines perceptible from the way his lip has curled back in a caustic snarl. Her hackles rise at the vision of him baring his teeth in challenge at her; at the exhibition of _danger_ she reads in the action.

Her instinct howls infinitely louder. _Defy!_

“ _Kiss me,_ ” Katara dares.

Zuko drags her mouth to his immediately, as if he’d been planning to kiss her _anyway_. It’s _nothing_ like the first kiss he’d given her on a whim only moments ago—and how far away those moments certainly feel at present. Before he’d been almost gentle. Now he dives into her tongue first, darting past the seam of her lips when she gasps at the feeling of his hands falling so that he can run his thumb under the hem of her bandeau.

Katara moans into the bruising kiss, the depravity and raw need that underscores the cracked sound echoing in the way that she locks her arms around Zuko’s neck and mindlessly grinds against him. 

They break apart with loud, haggard gasps, Zuko tapering off into a curse as he curls a hand over her hip and promptly helps her move against him.

“ _Tui,_ yes _,_ ” Katara sobs the words when she comes into the contact of Zuko’s steel hard cock straining against the zipper of his jeans, and the sob turns into a long, loud cavil when Zuko deftly slips the hem of her bandeau up to free her breasts and flick his thumbs over sensitive flesh.

“Feel that?” Zuko guides the undulating rock of her hips over him with heavy, languid movements. Katara shivers at the sound of his voice, thick and low with an ever present growl. “All _day,_ Kat. _All_ fucking day.”

The knowledge upends something in her, and Katara cants her body forward desperately as Zuko suddenly cups the full swell of her breast, and, _La_ , it’s _too much_ , the hot and wet sensation of his mouth closing over the sensitive nub and suckling just enough to pull a high keen from the dregs of her throat. Too much, as he still moves her core agonizingly slow against his clothed cock.

 _Too much_ and _still_ not enough. Katara wants _more_ , wants to hear him tell her that she’s _good_ for succumbing to the chemically imbalanced trigger of her behavior.

“ _Alpha_ ,” she pleads, instinctively tilting her head to the side. “please, Alpha. I want to _submit.”_

“I know you do princess,” Zuko moans through the words as he kisses his way up her chest. “I can smell the _need_ on your skin. Don’t you worry, though—how can I ever think to deny you when you ask so _nice?_ ”

In a single swift movement Zuko rolls her under him, and she preens at being caged in under his looming presence once again. She reaches for him, when after a beat all he does is continue to stare her down, but Zuko bats her hands away and leans back onto his knees.

Katara’s heart jumps as she watches tattooed muscle flex and shift from her laid back position, not daring to move, but her heart nearly _stops_ when Zuko promptly fits his fingers under the fabric of his sleeveless tee and lifts it over his head to carelessly fling away.

“Yours are next,” he assures her, knocking her knees apart. His yellow gaze leaves her to flick down her body, and when Zuko goes inhumanly still, her heart really does deign to stop. “my gods,” he whispers vehemently, and in the next second Katara is throwing her head back, bowing away in a sharp arc from the cushions underneath her. Zuko runs his knuckles up and over her clothed center in a single, careful stroke that only serves to make her reckless. “ _Katara_...”

Katara’s body unwinds the second he takes his hand away. She whimpers, shivering and trembling at the electric shock of _pleasure_ and _relief_ that had overtaken her at his touch. She squirms. Zuko has put himself between her knees, and she tries in vain to close her legs and rub her thighs together for any modicum of friction she can have.

“You’re a _mess,_ ” Zuko’s widened yellow eyes hood in reverence. The smoky timber of his voice dips an octave. “just... _soaking_ wet, Katara, my fucking gods.”

“Please!” Katara has to force the word past her lips with as incoherent as she is becoming. “Please. _Please—_ I _want—_ ”

“I know what you want,” Zuko snaps. “you want what I want, isn’t that right?”

The words sound strained to her, but she is in no mind to question the underlying implications of what she hears; she is too busy shuddering at the sight of Zuko hooking his fingers in the top of her shorts and panties, feeling the whisper of warm air turning cold against her flooded center as the fabric is tossed away.

“ _—es, yes yes yes_ ,” Katara’s mouth runs ahead without her. “all of it. Everything. _Please—_ ”

“Hands under your head.” Zuko snaps his teeth at her, and she does as she’s told with quivering movement.

“Atta girl,” he praises her gruffly, and then, with a terrifying snarl, Zuko drops flat between her legs, arms curing over her thighs to drag her where he wants her. A desperate litany of mewls fall out of her as Zuko shuts his eyes and nuzzles at the small crop of curls above her sex, his warm breath over her wet skin making her shake in anticipation. 

His bright citrine eyes suddenly lock with hers, something dark and unrecognizable flitting across his look. Katara’s breath catches.

“ _Oh_ ,” she gasps dumbly, trembling at the heavy, hot, and deliberate lick of Zuko’s tongue along the seam of her sopping folds. Sharp pleasure travels up her veins. Zuko growls, the sound vibrating _deliciously_ up her core, and then licks into her center like a starved man. “ _Oh—oh, fuck.”_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience, my friends! i know that this has been a long time coming. please enjoy but do beware the typos - i’ll get to them when i’m not bleeding from my eyes from staring at it after all this time. 
> 
> anyway, ur comments are my fuel. see you lot in the next one ♡.
> 
> **3/7:** edited!  
> 

* * *

Zuko moans when his mouth meets her, long and loud and broken as his eyes fall shut, as if he’s tasting something succulent or indeed most divine. Somewhere, behind the primal haze of her instincts, Katara registers that she sucks in a shuddering gasp of a breath at the feeling of him expertly, languidly, working open her folds.

For the longest of seconds, the heavy drum of rain against the windows is all that she can really sense.

Her mind whirrs in those precious seconds. She has been fighting her own oversensitivity and base reactions to Zuko since the second she’d realized her failure to take her medication on schedule—everything about him, from the moment she opened her eyes today, had settled into her senses tenfold and now it sets _something new_ amuck in her haywire system. Each and every interaction has been making her instinct rebel against her reason more and more... His voice, lowered and gravely in sharp, protective anger, had made her want to _let him_ fight Jet on her behalf. His demeanor, authoritative and aloof even as heat poured from his broad frame; his scent, thick and cloying, woodsy and spiced like cooking fire on a wet day—like _home_ , almost—had made her seek irrational comfort by clinging to his offered presence. His touch, assuring and careful, had made her feel _safe_ in a way words fail to describe. His gaze, attentive and keen and startlingly aglow, makes her feel _seen_ , even now. 

Yes; _right fucking now_.

She stutters, and her mind starts to lag further behind as those molten eyes—open, again; _watching her again_ —refuse to look away from her wide stare. The heady scent of him starts to take over the entirety of the den’s atmosphere and flood her nose, and fresh heat coils quickly and heavily in her belly as she tastes him on the back of her throat, where she swallows pooling drool. The scent glands along her inner thighs ache more terribly than the ones under her jaw now, and she cannot remember once, ever, feeling so _empty—_

Zuko ghosts his tongue up her slit. Up, down, up— _in_. The rain drums persistently; within her the _something new_ takes to a boil, violent in the valves of her heart as her body gives a jumpstart from onslaught to her senses. As her pulse begins to _sing_. His grip tightens impossibly over her hips as he sighs steam over her core, and the feeling only manages to deepen the wonderfully fuzzy reverie her mind slips towards.

Her walls flutter around the tip of his tongue, her hips rolling up in a single, failed, unbidden attempt to get him to slide deeper into her; to banish the ache of _empty_ and replace it with _full_ , but he does not go any deeper than past the very entrance of her center, only stops to curl his tongue upward in an agonizingly slow lick until he hits the underside of her clit.

_“Oh—fuck.”_

Lightning flashes, too close. Too near. An instant hard crack of thunder rattles through the walls of the minka just as fiery pleasure flushes throughout her body. She whimpers, fingers twitching aimlessly as every nerve ending lights up. It’s as if the lightning struck _her_. 

_Gods, fuck_ —she has never been more wet in her entire life; never this needy, or wanting, or ready to give herself over to anyone—let alone Zuko, considering the known nature of their relationship; _why_ they even know one another to begin with—yet here she is, wide open and pliant and ready for him to take her, to make her feel the depths of her heat that she’s been avoiding for nearly all of her life; to break her down and make her feel _this.._. Never did she think that he would agree to her sudden whims. Never did she think that he would take it seriously.

 _Spirits_ , is he taking it seriously.

“ _Zuko_.” She gasps out tufts of snow, choking out his name because there is no air in her lungs and it is the only word she can think of. _Alpha_ , her own instinct corrects her in his stead as she arcs away from the cushions. In less than seconds it spills past her lips.

“Alpha,” Katara all but sobs out the title, “ _alpha_.”

The answering growl vibrates right through her shivering frame. There’s something to it, that sound, and the primal thing in her roars back to the forefront of her senses at the timbre. Her fingers tighten in her hair and without a thought she tips her head back, her neck bare for the viewing in a desperate display of submission. Zuko’s palm slides up her body, a trail of a delicious burning sensation in his wake as he cups one of her breasts in one hand and brushes over her throat with the other. Another shiver rocks through her at the gentle, teasing scrape of his teeth over her mound. White dots her vision as the pressure in her core builds, a loud, begging moan escaping her mouth as Zuko fully, finally, sinks his tongue deep into her. 

Zuko’s growl breaks into hungry groan just as Katara feels a rush of too-warm slick flood down her walls, pooling where Zuko’s tongue dips into her opening. A curse builds behind her lips. The dark sound Zuko is making as his hold flexes over her starts up an answering whine at the back of her throat. His large, hot hand surrounding her neck—his thumb gliding a trail of electricity up the middle of it, pressing into the tender glands at her jaw, making her tilt back—moves in tandem with the other, kneading her breast in an infuriatingly sedate rhythm. 

_Fuck_ , the word keeps skittering across her numb mind. Her sharpened teeth sink into her bottom lip. It’s as if she’s been dipped in lava, how hot her skin feels against the heavy air of the den. _Fuck, oh fuck._

Shocks shoot out from her spine, her toes curling at his waist as he circles her clit with his tongue yet again; as he promptly widens his mouth over her and gives her entire sex a tantalizing, firm suck.

 _F “—uck!_ _Please_.” Katara chokes on the swear as she writhes against Zuko’s hold, but even at her begging he continues to take his time. He lets out another long, reverberating growl that makes her breath catch and her legs tremble. A tickle starts up her inner thighs where his silky hair sways over her damp skin, making her buck uncontrollably against his leisurely ministrations. His thumb trails down the center of her throat with more pressure, not blocking her air but still making her gasp for it. His fingers catch her nipple and she spews icy mist. His tongue dives deep into her again; purposeful, sturdy swipes along her quivering walls.

Not unlike the fashion in which she’s seen him set his most meticulous work to, slow and methodical, Zuko takes her apart with little effort. He follows when she moves; moans when she moans; fucks his tongue into her roughly when she dares to buck with too much force. Katara feels tears prick painfully behind her eyes as she gasps, as she loses her breath over and over again to the sinuous volly of licks that Zuko lavishes upon her throbbing core. Slick pools out of her in a near continuous trickle, and he is as relentless and fastidious as he is unhurried in the task of lapping it up. She whines, petulant, when he lifts his mouth from her folds. Her fingers tug harshly at the roots of her hair as she cranes her neck against the crook of his palm to fix her gaze—and her immediate _ire_ —back to the unreal vision of him laying between her legs. 

It’s her undoing, when she registers that his yellow stare is _still_ trained on her face; when the second he has her wide-eyed attention, he breathes steam over her again with a greedy snarl. She can see the length of his protruding canines and the glisten of his mouth, his chin just as wet from her gushing essence, and the searing wet heat of his steam against her own wet heat makes her hips stutter; makes her mind whir uselessly and her words die behind her own aching teeth. Makes her instinct howl loudly and the _something new_ gurgle.

The hungry, awestruck focus he looks at her with as he purrs her name only fuels the fire that he has so clearly breathed into her veins.

A string of incoherent whimpers spills past her lips as she tries to twist and turn within the grip of Zuko’s hands over her body, but he flexes his fingers over her neck— _stay_ , her instinct translates—the other hand trailing down to splay widely and possessively over her ribs. His touch burns, the pressure he applies light but firm, underlined with the very real notion that, yes, he could very well hurt her if he tried—underlined with the notion that he would _punish_ her with that strength, if she dared to want it. 

Too bright eyes remain fixed on her as that tongue—Spirits, that _tongue_ —darts out to lick fleetingly; teasingly; _infuriatingly_ ; along the seam of her folds once more.

 _Oh_ , does she _want_ it.

With the realization, the vestiges of her rational mind gives away to the bellow of her instinct. The _something new_ roils and pops hotly deep within her, and her own tongue darts out to wet her lips.

“ _Alpha_ ,” Katara has trouble recognizing the guttural husk of her own voice, the low gasp of breath that it is. Zuko’s eyes brighten impossibly at the utterance. “ _f_ _uck me._ ”

Zuko’s fingers lax over her throat just so, his brow lifting just as, and his slick-wet mouth parting to form the tiniest _o_. He sits back slowly, the hand at her neck sliding absently down her frame and causing her to shiver as it settles on her hip; his long silken hair falling over his shoulder with the movement. She is hit with a wave of bamboo and teakwood, and it fuels her senses enough to continue without prompt. 

“Don’t you _want_ to, alpha? I’m using my words. I’m _asking_ you _—_ ”

“... _Katara_...” Zuko says, ceasing her sudden babble. For that very moment he is _just_ Zuko—not _Prince_ , not _Alpha_ , but her _best friend_ —as startled and as wide eyed as her, as if he’s just realized what he’s gotten himself into, and the shrinking part of her knows right then that if, instead, she asked him to stop, he would do so without a thought. Immediately she glares from under her lashes; how much did he _want_ her to beg? To say _I want you?_

“ _Katara_ —”

“ _Zuko_ , just—please.” She squirms; would squirm right out of her too-hot skin, peppered with sweat and aching something terrible just underneath, if she truly could. _Relief_ , instinct begs, and for once she agrees. _“Please_.” Katara echoes herself. “Fuck me, please.”

Zuko’s mouth works over words that he doesn’t say, his scent fluxing briefly in the air between them, but the teakwood persist and, ultimately, the moment really lasts no longer than a single shuddering heartbeat. More lightning flashes over the wide den, and in that second it takes to brighten and fade, Zuko is her _alpha_ again.

“You want me to fuck you?”

Katara shivers; her instinct _sighs_. 

_Yes_. 

“ _Yes_.”

Gods, is that voice really and truly _hers?_

“Is that all, princess?”

“Yes, a _lpha_.” Katara corrects herself quickly, squirming with aimless need and anticipation. Her gums beat a throbbing ache, the pulse nearly matching the one between her legs. A beat of silence weighs in the warming air between them. One, two, and then Zuko lets out a rumbling chuckle that only manages to fuel to make her gums aches more.

“You’re _sure_?”

“Zu— _alpha_...” Katara whines, nearly completely out of her head with the rapid fire way shocks send throughout her body. “It—I— _yes_.”

“... Katara—”

A needy, frustrated mewl falls from her lips. If she were less instinct and more consciously her, the barely varying note to Zuko’s tone would have easily caught her immediate attention; she would have latched on to his lack of answer to her question; of _don’t you want to, alpha?_

As it stands, her instinct persistently rules out all else save the sole focus of her crescendoing desire—her building, blinding need for her body to wind so tightly that it snaps; that the _something new_ and the ache _stops—_ and each very delightful impending death.

 _Defy_ , instinct demands.

“ _Fine_ ,” quickly, Katara rolls and presses her face into the pillows with a gasp, both desperate and annoyed. “it’s fine—” she reaches between her sticky thighs, ignoring the rather aborted sound that rents the immediate air behind her, and runs her fingers through her dripping slick before promptly parting her folds and sinking her digits into herself. A long, strangled moan rips out of her at the glimpse of pleasure; at the heightening of the _danger_ now sitting at her shoulder. “— _fuck_ , I’ll jus’ _do it myself_ —”

The growl that Zuko lets out is deafening and deadly, makes her hackles rise—and then one hand is wrapping around her wrist, snatching her fingers away from inching any deeper into her aching center. 

“ _Oh_ ,” he hisses in apparent revelation, draping himself over her so that his voice is at her ear, “I ...see. I _see_. You’ve done it now, princess.”

Just as she begins to hazily wonder the meaning behind his phrasing—just as she begins to wonder what of her punishment—a sudden sharp smack to her ass sends her jolting forward.

Katara hisses at the loss of her fingers in her wet warmth, but instinct— _she_ —delights in the fresh sting on her skin. An upset sound builds in her throat at the sound of Zuko’s darkly amused rumble of laughter; a sound that brings her back to the need to defy.

“ _Little omega_ ,” Zuko stops _that_ in its tracks; says the words with just enough of a warning growl; with just enough _compel_ to still her body and make her vision tint with sharp ultraviolet. “if you want me to fuck you, you’re going to have to behave for me.”

 _Defy._ “ _Make me_.”

“Don’t worry.” Zuko purrs. With a hand on her hip, he smooths his touch toward the middle of her lower back and then promptly pushes her flat into the cushions, belly down. Instinct preens; Katara’s body tingles with a rush of raw anticipation at the force in position, her breath of snow stuttering in her lungs as Zuko’s hair curtains them from the flash of lightning that brightens the room. She automatically arches toward his impossible body heat in a bid to dispel her natural cool. “I have every intention to.”

To her surprise, it is a soothing rumble that vibrates in the air between them; through her; as Zuko slowly starts to nip and lick his way down her back—not a continuation of the domineering, warning growl he’d started at her with. The reposeful cadence of the timbre wraps around that _something_ running amuck in her instincts, makes the tension in her muscles begin to relax, unbidden. Before she knows it Zuko is between her legs again, with one arm circling around her hips and bringing them up for his own ease of access, his other hand moving to mold over her thigh.

Zuko begins to start a soothing pattern of circles over a set of the swollen glands along tender swell of her inner thighs. A deep moan starts in her chest. His easy handling of her body makes her lashes flutter and her heart skip dangerously, and in the span of a breath she is falling towards that wondrous, syrupy haze. That haze that she hadn’t even realized that she’s been downright _craving_ since her introduction.

Katara gasps. Zuko’s tongue plays over her slit; smoothly slips between her folds in a sinuous stroke that makes her quiver and fist her hands in the crimson down beneath her. The rumble coming from his chest keeps to the air as he licks into her, as he swirls his tongue in torturous circles over her throbbing bundle of nerves. All at once, the ache in her body starts to ebb; the combination of the different attentions to her senses performing some kind of _correction_ in her on the most primal of levels.

“Oh, _yes_ ,” Katara whimpers as Zuko laves off into a steady, sure rhythm of hot, sloppy licks at the entrance of her fluttering walls. Pressure builds almost too quickly at the delicious incursion he showers her with. He gently kneads the supple flesh under his touch in time with the flick of his tongue, his purr echoing out pleasantly from her pulsating channel to tips of her fingers; to her nipples, hardened as they already are pressed into the cushions, and right down to her curling toes. “ _alpha...”_

Zuko’s purr picks up in volume; doubles in vibration in another one of those deep, distinct way that makes her moan loud and long for him. Suddenly, he scrapes a canine over her swollen clit—takes his fingers from performing the precious, relaxing pressure over her scent gland and slides them clear into her center.

“ _Alpha,_ ” Katara jolts, scrabbling for purchase as she practically screams out the title, as Zuko runs his teeth carefully over her clit again and curls his fingers against the roof of her pulsating walls. Her throat tightens with a sob, a wash of intense pleasure abruptly scoring through her. “ _yes—_ oh _,_ _fuck—please yes!”_

The telling wet weight of steam falls over her the back of her thighs; a soothing sigh of warmth that makes a cry find its way past her lips; and again at the loss of his tongue in contact with her sex.

Yet, her mind readily supplies the fresh image of Zuko with his mouth reddened and glistening with her slick, chin all but dripping with her shiny essence from his reverent ministrations. Katara threads her fingers through her hair and tugs just so she has something to _do_ with them as Zuko takes— _gives_ —what he wants of her; as he keeps up the endless babble of incoherent sounds that fall from her mouth in gasps. She unravels quickly in his clutches, the ultraviolet at the edges of her vision bleeding in swiftly over the entirety of it as her core tightens with the beginnings of her release.

“ _Zuko_ ,” she croaks; moans brokenly when the call of his name is rewarded with a sharp nick of correction over her swollen bud. She bucks desperately against his mouth, against his fingers pumping a damning rhythm into her. “a-alpha. _Alpha_. I’m going t-to—”

Zuko’s mouth is sure and firm, silencing her with practiced ease as he curls his fingers gently within her, in perfect contrast to the way he wraps his lips around her clit and gives a firm, languid suck.

Stars skitter across her vision as her walls flutter around Zuko’s fingers, sleet sticking and melting into the pooling saliva in the back of her throat as she tries to let out the ragged, broken thing of a groan that builds there at the rush of slick her orgasm sends streaming out of her body. Behind her, Zuko’s purr shifts into a heady, pleased kind of growl, but she hardly registers it, or the way it makes her limbs infinitely lax—hardly registers him, lapping at her sex and lowering her gingerly from his steady hold—as electric aftershocks make her flush from her scalp to the swell of her heaving chest.

“ _Fuck,_ ” she cries the word into the cushions as her hips work without her, as a cool wave of relief coats her bones and dulls the throb in each of her glands. “ _fuck_ fuck _fuck, fuck_.”

With a steadying hand on her hip, Zuko eases her onto her back and then into a sitting position next to him, his hand firmly clasping hers, ever hot to the touch, and the other carding through the sweat-damp curls matting her temple. The yellow in his iris is bright and beautiful, hypnotic and all consuming through the pure bliss coating her mind, and for the longest of seconds he does nothing but torture her with his gaze; trails it carefully up her bare, shivering body as if committing her to memory. 

“Good,” Zuko’s voice is low—calculating. “very good...”

If not for her clamoring instinct against her slowly returning rational awareness, she might notice the return of that old and distraught glint interrupting the entrancing sway of Zuko’s molten stare, or the implications of his observation—of his words, of his _posture_ , and the way he touches.

If not for the way Zuko lowers his head and slants his lips softly over hers to let her taste herself; if not for the way he makes her heart pound dangerously against her sternum at the gentle way he brings her bottom lip between his with the quietest of sighs, she would bare her neck to him and find her way to her knees. She would, at this point in the overwhelming simmer of her untempered heat, happily prop herself on all fours and cry at him like she’s sure any proper omega should after being brought to climax like that.

“ _Relax._ ” Zuko rumbles thickly. “Just...”

The kiss— _new_ but fitting in his continued softness, something she cannot find the mind to put a name to—brings the quietest of sounds from the back of her throat, and before she knows it she is sliding her fingers into Zuko’s hair and amping up the pace of the kiss with a decidedly feral nip of her canines.

Zuko’s soothing rumble morphs abruptly into a broken growl, his fingers coming to sear the sensitive skin at the nape of her neck as he once again curls his hands possessively around her. He starts to faintly draw circles with the pads of his thumbs against the swollen glands under her jaw in the same second that he parts her lips with his tongue, once again slowing her down with nothing but sure, steady caresses. A loud, needy moan bellows out from her chest at the tender feeling, and she breaks away from him only to whimper; to beg; to get him back to the _devouring;_ to the _not-quite promise_ ; but Zuko only chases after her tongue first, his mouth meeting hers slowly again and again; the pattern he rubs over her glands becoming firmer with every one until she is but a rippling puddle in his grasp. As pliant as her element in the clutch of his palm. 

Zuko sucks in a sharp breath against her lips, one of his hands trailing featherlight over her shoulder, down the center of her spine, and over the curve of her hip; setting off shivers that meld into a tremble. “ _Katara_ ,” he whisper-sighs, and electric heat weighs heavily in her core at the sound of her name on his smoky tone, amplifying the returning ache of empty. Instinct sings in high notes within her veins, and she goes to him without a thought; slips forward over the cushions of the conversation pit and straddles his lap. He groans. “that wasn’t so hard, now was it?”

“N-No.” Katara mumbles. Chasing his heady teakwood scent, she drops her head to the crook of his neck, and then her hips to his, a gasp and a shiver working through her as her damp core meets the mouth-watering strain of his erection within his jeans. Barely, she recalls a quip he made earlier; something about resisting everything to do with her _all day_. Swiftly, a raw hunger returns to hollow out her gut, a desire so strong that it tangles her tongue and riles her instinct anew; returns the edge of the ache that simply is her heat. “That was... I still _need—”_

“I know.” Zuko nuzzles at the spot under her ear. It’s an intimate, comforting act from the alpha, and it makes a short purr emit from her chest without her permission as his hot hands smooth down the expanse of her back. “I know, princess. Tell me how you feel right now..?”

The thread of clarity granted to her from the abruptness of her orgasm just moments before frays at the edges at the question. How does she answer? How does she explain the way her body has found a limbo between heaven and earth—between calm and chaos—and that she wants nothing more than to tip towards the imbalance of her instinctual want? How to tell him that her need is more of a _need?_

Adjacently; how to _thank_ him for it?

She presses her lips to the sweat-salty skin of his inked shoulder and lets out a short, low note.

Zuko, bless him and _curse_ him, seems to read her nonverbal answer as if she had opened her mouth and spoke proper words.

“Better, yeah?” He asks quietly, then, with the most tentative grind against her oversensitive sex that nearly makes her sink her sharpened teeth into his neck: “But not quite, is it.”

Katara meets the movement frantically, with a desperate sound, chasing the sharp pleasure that the texture of Zuko’s denim clad length shoots up her spine. She dislodges herself from the crook of his shoulder and looks at him; wonders if her eyes are just as eerily bright as his in the dim grayscale of the overcast coming in from the walls of glass.

Outside the storm rages on, thunder crackling through the atmosphere just as a tremor works its way through her.

Zuko let’s out a punched-out groan. With careful movement betraying the cadence of her rocking hips, she raises her hand to his face and trails her fingertips along the line of the comet-shaped scar that sweeps across his stunning visage. Zuko exhales sharply at the touch, his pupils widening as he looks at _—_ as he _sees_ —her.

Her heart flutters, and instinct shakes within her as the leaves on the trees do when she holds his keen, inquiring gaze; whispering to her from just under the surface of her skin. Her breathing, previously as shallow as the howl of the wind outside of the minka, picks up a deeper rhythm as, for the longest of seconds, she sits, mesmerised by the molten flecks of topaz she finds in his iris.

Vehemently, that _new_ thing crowding her baser of senses makes her heart’s flutter turn into a painful lurch. It makes the electric heat simmering in her gut seek escape out through her veins like lightning—but it reaches nowhere real, only zings through her chest and returns to her belly in an angry roil that makes slick begin to curdle at the lips of her folds once more.

“Alpha.” Katara leans forward and rests her forehead against Zuko’s, sighing at how _he_ sighs; at how his hands move from her back to settle on her hips; to start another set of his infinite patterns over where his touch lies. “Please,” she finds that she is no longer holding contempt for the word, finds that she rather likes the way Zuko appears to react to the sweet note there now. Katara swallows a thicket of saliva and breathes out icy mist in a bid to soothe the rapidly returning ache in the scent glands under her jaw. “please,” she whispers it, “please, alpha—”

Zuko tilts his chin and cuts her off; kisses her as if trying to ingrain a secret into her bones; or an exaltation into her senses, and when she whimpers; when she _begs_ with nothing but tiny, needy sounds; when she runs her hands over his broad shoulders, shifts in his lap, and lets herself continue to rock her damp core over the strain of his cock within the confines of his jeans—he finally, _finally_ meets her beckon.

Katara lets out a quiet, startled sound. In a single swift move, Zuko fits his hands under her thighs and lifts her while rising to his knees in a pivot that puts her back to the wall of the crimson pit. A whine starts up in the back of her throat when he moves away from her to stand, but it turns from a sound of discontent to wonder as she looks up at him.

She gasps with a sharp, gulping inhale at the sight and the feeling of him towering above her; ethereal and wanting, and even as the icy chill returns in his immediate absence, she can do nothing but look on with reverence.

Zuko stands framed by the swaying flora and the rain against the windows, in the sight of lingering flashes from the sky that narrows the slit of his pupils into almost nothing; the firefly yellow, ringed with impossible black, boring into her in a way that makes her feel stripped from her flesh and down to nothing but her instinct. Down to the frayed edges of what one might recognize as her shuddering soul. The shadows of the den sweep over him as if in embrace, giving definition to each dip and curve of his corded frame. Lightning flickers again, and the amber eyes of the dragons sweeping over his body glint at her as if alive with his every breath; as if judging.

His name slips off of her tongue in a halted, murmured tone of awe.

“ _Zuko_...”

Silent, with a heavy-lidded gaze that never once wavers from hers, Zuko first brings his hands up to haphazardly knot his long locks at the base of his neck, and then to the hem of his jeans. Her own eyes widening, another pool of saliva starts to fill her mouth from her bottom canines as his fingers catch on the button, and then the zipper of his dark denim. Her heart quickens dangerously as he undresses before her, nonplussed and unhurried in the task as he has been in all else. Another whine works its way out of her once he stands in nothing but a pair of fitting navy boxers—as the teakwood scent hanging around his person suddenly wafts out to her in strong, cloying waves. As she notes that the fabric clings to him and hides little; _leaves_ little, to her absent imagination.

There is the barest recognizable distinction in the coloration, a splotch of darkness where she could trace the outline of the head of his cock with her finger if she reached out; tangible evidence of his lust for her—and she almost does reach out; lifts her hands out to him in a voiceless plead—but the same soothing rumble that Zuko had lavished on her as she came down from climax starts from deep within his chest, and her arms instead wrap around herself to keep herself from _snatching_ as he hooks his thumbs in the band of his underwear and promptly lets them drop. 

Her gums and her glands give a terrible ache as she watches his cock spring free. It is swollen and red and _proud_ , flanked by the ends of blue and red tails; beaded with pre-cum and making her want to sink to her knees a posture like a bitch all over again.

“ _Tui_...” Katara swallows thickly. “ _Tui. Tui_ and _La_.”

The barest of chuckles rumbles out of Zuko, and she flicks her gaze upward to meet his. Mirth crinkles the corners of his eyes but he does not repeat the sound—a motion that is decidedly unamused. Instead _he_ gets to his knees; returns to her by gently knocking her knees apart with his warm hands. She nearly mourns the loss in sight of him, how long it feels that she has been _waiting_ ; but she is quickly placated but his hands smoothing up the tops of her thighs, only to grace past her hips and over her ribs so that he can cup her breasts in his palms and run his thumbs over the hardened buds of her sensitive flesh. She shudders with a broken mewl, and Zuko echoes the sound with a content hum that nearly works against the grain of her nerves.

He holds her gaze easily—for even kneeling before her on the cozy floor of the conversation pit, he is her perfect height—and leans over her to slowly begin peppering kisses up her torso while his fingers give her nipples a firm pinch. Her hands fly to his wrists with a gasp. Shocks of hot pleasure tear through her at the abrupt attention; at the contrast of soft and teasing.

His cock is hot and heavy against the line of her leg.

“ _Zuko_ —”

“Alpha,” he murmurs the correction quietly against her navel.

“ _Alpha._ ” Katara throws her head against the lip of the cushions at her back as Zuko licks a single hot stripe up her sternum; as he gives her nipples another tweak in an infuriating tandem. “D-Don’t make me wait anymore,” she begs, and it is the most coherent thing she has said in _hours_ , “please. Alpha, I need you.”

A keening whine resonates out of her as Zuko silently, swiftly fits a thigh over one of his shoulders and drops his mouth to her sopping wet core, parting her folds in a single practiced swipe. She shivers at the feeling of his tongue in her once more, but it is not what she _needs_. She lifts her hands to tug at his hair in accordance with the cavil of protest that vibrates from low in her throat.

Zuko gives her clit a flick with the tip of his tongue in retaliation. “Still wet,” he rumbles, burying his nose in the spot of neat curls over her mound. He takes a deep inhale, a loud growl bursting from both of them in light of the action.

“Hold on to me.” Zuko demands brokenly as he rises slowly, though she detects an almost gentle note in the underline of his growl. “C’mon Katara,” he says as he lets her knee fall from his shoulder to hook over his arm; as he gathers up a trail of her slick in his palm and all to easily lathers it over his cock. The sound that escapes her is almost embarrassing. “put your arms around my neck.”

She is an entirely useless woman under his command; under his gaze; under his touch; under the sheer weight of his alpha presence and how it makes her already haywire system sticky at the cogs. She is nothing but her instinct; a bundle of raw desire never felt before.

Katara puts her arms around his neck.

Zuko fists the base of his cock, brow snapped down in a nearly pained look as he runs the reddened tip through the slick of her folds. She gasps at the sight and the feeling of the tease—and he pauses, raising blazing yellow eyes to gauge her reaction. The soothing rumble starts up from low in his chest again, just under the lingering roll of nearby thunder. Katara tugs impatiently at him, the cool fingers of one hand digging into the inked flesh of his shoulder and the other daring to slip down his side; over his hip and to the swell of his ass.

Steam uncurls from Zuko’s parted lips, right alongside a low guttural sound. In a blink his mouth is hovering just over hers in an almost kiss—“Ready?” He rumbles; ” _Yes_.” She pleads—but the brush of his mouth is lost to the beautiful, all consuming feeling of his cock sinking into her in one long, measured push. 

Katara’s mouth works over sounds that don’t form all the way, only a strangled gasp managing to escape her as Zuko lets out the lowest, _neediest_ growl she has ever heard from him before. She curses at the feeling of his rock hard length seated fully inside of her, gasping as her walls clench and trob around the feeling of _full._ Distantly, she can feel the prick of tears behind her eyes as Zuko vibrates with the effort of remaining still. 

“ _La.”_ Katara lets out the praise as if were a curse, a hiss of a whipser along Zuko’s slack mouth over her lips, one that quickly dissolves into a sobbing litany. “Oh La _fuck_ —please. Please move. Z— _alpha_. Move. Move move _move—_ ”

The end of her name makes its way into a broken growl as Zuko pulls out of her, agonizingly slow _. “—rrrrah-_ ah _fuck._ Katara _...”_ Zuko drops his face into the crook of her neck and presses his teeth to the curve in a sharp nip that makes her shiver and moan. In a split decision he hoists the knee over the crook of his arm back over his shoulder. Katara lifts her hips to meet his with a choked sob, and she knows that there will be bruises there later, with how tightly Zuko’s fingers grip there at the slick slide of his cock sinking deeper from the new shift in angle.

Katara’s breath hitches as he tilts his chin to kiss away the tear that tracks down her cheek; as she slips; as she finds herself disobeying his constant order and calls him by his name. She cannot tell if he is punishing her or rewarding her, with the way he drives his cock deep and hard into her throbbing walls; with a virulent snarl that shows the sweet curve of his deadly elongated canines with each and every bone-rattling thrust for the accidental utterance.

 _Zuko_ is all she can think. 

_Zuko_ is all she can say.

 _Zuko_ is all she can _feel_.

Tight heat coils in her center, a rain of pinpricks dotting up her spine as Zuko’s mouth finds hers in a proper kiss—as the sound of skin on skin starts to rent the air of the den. Her tongue meets his when he darts it out to part her lips, and the ragged moan that vibrates out of him and into her at the contact, at the way she takes his bottom lip between hers just as he had done. Her breath of snow meets his steam—steam that is starting to thicken into smoke as he picks up his pace with a snappish abandon.

Zuko’s hair tumbles free of its knot just as he fists a hand in the ends of hers, just as he gives a gentle tug so he can tip her head back and swallow the wanton moan that builds on her tongue at the wave of pleasure the familiar sensation brings her.

“ _M-More_ ,” she begs against his lips. She feels high on him; the scent of him; the weight of him and the way he cages her in against the seat of the conversation pit; the entirety of his presence alone. Sharp static dances up from her fingertips and down to her toes as he grinds his cock against that precious spot deep in her core, and like impending rain she can feel the tell of another orgasm edging over her horizon. “harder! Please. _Everything_ , _harder_ —”

A strong tremble runs through her body as Zuko concedes to her plea with another snarl—another growl of her name. Katara buries her nose in the hollow of his throat and inhales the musk of cinder-smoke and teakwood, wraps her arms tightly around his neck even as her hands start to shake. Zuko murmurs low, filthy nothings into her hair as he threads his fingers through it to fist in the roots, making her writhe and sob at the alluring octave, heavy and husky with the lust she can smell on his skin; at the way his hand in her hair keeps her _still_ while he fucks into her.

“So good, princess,” Zuko praises her breathlessly. “ _Katara_ , Katara— _so_ good for me right now. So _so_ —”

The praise puts the stab of that _newness_ in the marrow of her bones. “ _Close_ ,” she hisses; gasps. “Close. Alpha. _Please_ —”

With a high keen— _“Good girl,”_ —Zuko lets his hand from her hair and pops two fingers into his mouth, and she watches dumbly, with an impending need so strong that she cannot possibly put words to it, as he curls his tongue between them so that they glisten in the dim light. 

Zuko leans back on his knees, his hips working to thrust up into her at another new angle. A lilting growl pours out of her, her lip catching on the jut of her canine as new found intimacy lets Zuko take his fingers from his mouth and find her clit with ease.

She is so heightened on the dregs of her heat—on her roaring instinct, on teakwood and cinder-smoke and hints of bamboo, on _alpha..._ It takes next to nothing. A flicker of lightning and a crack of thunder—or is that her vision blanking?—the switch of wind and the shift in direction of the rain; and her orgasm is ripping through her with the force of a tsunami. True clarity, abrupt and euphoric, makes her eyes flutter shut as it ripples through her body, as her spine snaps into an arc so taut that it squishes her breasts against Zuko’s heaving chest. 

Instinct sighs.

_Relief._

“ _Fuck,_ _oh fuck_ ,” Katara cries out his name in a tiny, reverent whimper as her body coils and unwinds; as she absently follows the guidance of his hand to lean back against the seat behind her. “ _mm_ — _fuck._ Zuko...”

“ _Good_ , Katara.” Zuko coos the words over a low, strangled note; a deep gasp that makes his frame shudder against hers. “That’s it, princess. You were perfect. _Perfect_...” 

A roll of thunder that shakes the glass of the minka covers the melody of their heaving breaths. As Zuko slowly, carefully, lets her leg start to slip from his shoulder; as her climax winds and then ebbs; she suddenly feels more like herself—regardless of how the strangely emerging presence of happiness, of immensely blissful, and of startlingly, purely _sated_ she is starting to register—than she has since waking that morning. Even as Zuko swiftly pulls his cock from between her folds with a sharp grunt; leaving her empty with a broken growl; and spills his seed over the expanse of her torso. 

Sticky warm white lands in a splatter over her sternum and breasts, where she can feel it instantly start to pool towards her quivering navel. A string of small, aimless mewls drags its way out of her, and when she manages to clear the haze coating her vision at the retreating warmth of Zuko’s body, she looks up to see him flushed red from his scalp down his chest—hand messy with thick spunk and his firefly eyes shifting in molten waves towards syrupy topaz. 

Katara blinks, but when she opens her eyes Zuko is nowhere in sight. Another whimper starts up in her—just how long did she close her eyes, really?—but before the confused call can make its way out of her mouth with the rest, there are hot hands gathering her from the floor of the conversation pit and up into strong arms that hold her close.

His low, soothing purr makes a play at the little sounds she cannot stop herself from making as she writhes through her aftershocks.

The sound washes over her in a blanket of comfort that her instinct tells her is something akin to protection, or reassurance, but even as it makes her limbs lax and the flutter in her pulse slow to a reasonable beat, Katara is _Katara_ , the sea-shell roar of her heat, the fuel of her unchecked instinct, fading ever so slowly to the back of her mind. 

By the time she realizes that the moon is caressing her awake, that she is in a bed of emerald sheets and tucked against a sinewy frame covered in dragons and scratch marks; swords and bruises, there is no more searing purple at the edges of her vision. There is no aura of icy-cold radiating from her skin. There is only the pleasant soreness between her legs and the primal emotion of content thrumming in her bones.

By the time she rolls on her side and sees dark caesium already watching her, she is much less instinct and much more _her_. 

She blinks and looks.

Blinks; _looks_.

“Zu—?” She slurs into the velvet quiet.

The purr reverberating in the atmosphere quiets. Zuko smiles at her, his octave low and observant; his caesium blending between topaz and gold as his eyes crinkle affectionately at the corners. “There she is,” he says, sitting up, reaching out to hand her a glass. “how do you feel?”

Tentatively, she sits up and accepts the water, not sure if she trusts her voice just yet. She stills as his fingers brush hers over the glass, and, as if shocked from her memory, images flash across her mind for the longest of a seconds— _anywhere but here_ and _of course I trust you_ ; _use your words_ and _yes, alpha_.

“Zuko.” Her heart lurches and picks up that distinct, heavy tempo that comes with the unfurling bud of anxiety. Her voice is raspy with sleep and wavering with the weight of her realization. “ _La_ , I—”

Zuko cuts her off simply; with the lowering of his head and his mouth slanting softly over hers. Katara’s body reacts to the kiss before she does—a sigh against his gentle capture and a shiver against the body; a tingle that spreads from her chest through her body.

_... What in Tui’s name?_

“It’s okay. You’re okay.” Zuko tells her just as simply, curling further around her tired form and picking up his purr where he left it off. Against every shout of her rational mind, her body reacts to that, too; succumbing to the instinctual trance it sets her senses toward. “I’m here, Kat. It’s just me.”

Katara’s throat tightens as, at once, she is bombarded with a mix of emotions. That’s _exactly_ the matter at hand. 

“Zuko...”

“ _Katara_.” Zuko says her name with a hint of an authoritative snap that reminds her of the _Western Prince_ , even as he loops his arm over her so that he can pull her flush to him and make her pulse scatter out of tune with his relaxing rumble. It books no room for argument, and her teeth click shut despite how one builds on the tip of her tongue. “Katara. I’m only going to say this once because, well, because I’ve been awake making sure you’re okay and I think we could both use the sleep, so listen carefully. Okay?”

“But—”

“I regret nothing and neither should you.” Zuko cuts her off once more, and this time her mouth clicks shut out of surprise. _“It’s just me_. Understand? _”_

Katara furrows her brow at him, her grip tightening over her cup of water. “You—you don’t? I... But I was—Zuko, I _gave in_ —”

“ _No_ —no. Stop that. You needed that from me, Katara. You didn’t _give in_ to anything, _I_ was happy to give it. I get that there might be something about what happened that you don’t quite... grasp, but princess, I promise you. I promise you that we can talk about it over breakfast. Right now the only thing you are allowed to focus on is feeling better.”

Her ready retort dies at her lips, her argument seeming almost silly next to his blatant claim. Steady gold eyes meet her stare. 

“It’s just me, Kindred.” Zuko says, and the rare term—twice in a day is a whole new record—makes a flower of endearment bloom behind her heart. “We’re friends before anything, remember? So whatever line of thought you were just thinking... trust me. Give it up.”

“... _Best_ friends,” Katara corrects with a small smile. If Zuko smells the salt of the tears pricking behind her eyes, he pretends to notice nothing of it.

“Good girl.” Zuko practically beams the praise at her, abruptly sending her mind reeling all over again as it washes over her; as he rises from the bed and she sees that he is covered in nothing but a pair of shorts that rest low in his fine hips. “Now drink your water,” he continues, ambling towards the door of the bedroom. “you really need it right now. And stay put, understand? I saved you the last of the kelp wraps but I couldn’t bring them up _and_ you...”

An unbidden bubble of laughter trickles past her lips as she presses her mouth to the rim of her glass; as she shuts her eyes and carefully catalogues every itch and ache in her body; as she realy, truly registers the way her senses feel as _clear_ as they’ve ever been.

Huh.

_Leave it to Zuko..._

“Alpha.”

His voice is a low, soothing rumble when he corrects her. One that makes her pulse skip and her instinct sigh. Katara’s eyes fly open, her voice coming out in a squeak. 

Had she said that out loud? “What?”

Her gaze finds Zuko where he stands halfway out the door, looking over at her with a firefly glint in his gaze.

“Leave it to _Alpha._ ”

  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
